[Stimpy]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

Not at all. Just wanted to point out that there are probably contributors that support Democrats as well but they aren't listed anywhere because that doesn't fall under the evil GOP/FOX NEWS conspiracy.

This goes without saying. People will, and have the right to, support the side of the debate of their choosing from a financial perspective. How these people do their jobs and present information is where the problems lie.

Cowperson's post is all anyone should ever need to see in this regard anyway.

I wouldn't agree with that claim at all. I don't want to discount Cowperson's contribution to the forum as he always provides thought provoking content, but Cowperson's post is pretty specious to be quite honest. He's relying on extremely flawed information from biased sources and out dated information.

The study he links to is 25 years old. I'm not sure if anyone took time to read the study but the methodology is flawed, which the researchers admit, and they rely on this flaw in their discussion of their findings. Later studies also point to the glaring flaw of sample selection and manipulation of the subjects. "These studies acknowledge, the news reports, the topics covered and the participants in the experiments were selected, in part, to ensure that passions would be activated by engaged partisans" (Peffley, Avery & Glass, 2001). Later studies have concluded that the hostile media effect exists, but is more conditioned by both the content of the story and the knowledge of the reader. Framing and agenda setting theory hold more sway that the hostile media effect as the hostile media effect is is usually a result of long term exposure to sources who routinely use framing and agenda setting practices.

The most interesting facet of this study is it was done in the early 80's, prior to the scrapping of the Fairness Doctrine, meaning that mass media was still required, by law, to present both sides of a story and allow equal time to the contrary position to provide rebuttal.

It is also important to note that the majority of the information about journalistic voting practices comes from another out dated report published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in 1981 and republished by conservative activist Brent Bozell under the guise of the mislabeled Media Research Center (MRC). Bozell is also responsible for NewsBusters, Parents Television Counsil and CNSNews, which was Conservative News Service and later rebranded as Cyberbast News Service so as not to tip it's bias, which routinely creates a circular reference chain in their stories. The American Enterprise Institute is also a very right leaning organization and has been known to take liberties with their research. No where on the MRC site do they provide the method or raw data for the statistics presented. It is hard to take any of this information seriously when the actual studies are not included to verify the findings, identify any bias in the sample/population or if the stats selected were cherry picked.

Olbermann violated his contract with MSNBC and that is why he was suspended.

I wonder if we looked through the contributions of others at NBC, or any other organization, if we would find similar issues though. I agree with this policy and think that all media should be held to the same standard. It is hard to remain neutral when you work for or give to one side of the argument. That being said, what does it say when an entire organization, and the parent corporation, are giving and supporting heavily, one side of the debate?

The 1,000 pound gorilla that has not yet been poked is Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, and the mind boggling decision to allow such corporate gifts to election campaigns. This should be part of this discussion as well. For years we have heard one side of the discussion make claims about activist judges, but this decision was the biggest example of politically motivation activism in the court in over a century. When taken into that context how great a sin is any single individual's contribution when a corporation can so easily give 4,000 times the individual contribution max?