The difference between US vs UK Ebola news coverage

From the show Russell Howard's Good News


BTW, that's Dele Adebola

Pew Study on Political Polarisation of the American Public

APU, I haven't read the comments on the Wow, how ignorant do they think you are??? Post, but I have this feeling that they run along the lines that the Koch Brothers care more about you than Bloomberg does.  After all, the Kochs do all sorts of wonderful things that are harmful to you: they must care!

Anyway, The Pew Charitable Trust (more billionaires) came up with a study on political polarisation in the US. It's a very involved study on the topic as the video below points out, getting into many different aspects of polarisation.

The part which interests me the most is the media, even that is rather involved.  The most consistent Media source for the right is Fox News, with about 47% of those identified as conservative listing that as their trusted source of their news.  Liberals, tend to have many different news sources with CNN (15%), NPR (13%), MSNBC (12%) and the New York Times (10%) all ranking near the top of the list.

The important part of all this:

The public’s understanding of government and politics is also influenced by the extent to which they trust – or distrust – the information they hear from various news sources. In other words – how open people are to the political news and information put forth by various outlets, including those they do not actively consume.

In general, the survey finds that there is more trust than distrust of news sources. But there are substantial differences in trust and distrust across the ideological spectrum.

People who took this poll were asked if they had heard of 36 different news sources.  If they had heard of the source, they were then asked to what level they trusted the accuracy of that source. Those with consistently liberal political values had heard of more sources than any other ideological group – on average, about 26 out of the 36 – and trust about twice as many as they distrust (10.5 vs. 4.8). Respondents with mostly liberal views or with about an equal mix of conservative and liberal views have heard of fewer sources, on average, but still trust more sources than they distrust.



Where I fit in here:

One example is the Economist. Only 34% of panelists have heard of the outlet, but within that group there is far more trust (12%) than distrust (2%), when it comes to news about government and politics. The BBC is recognized by a greater portion of respondents (76%), but is similarly more trusted (36%) than distrusted (7%).

Oddly, they left out the Guardian (even though it was one of the choices in the poll).  Anyway.

What really came out here was that those with consistently liberal views had more sources for information than those on the right.




See Also:

• Why conservatives prefer propaganda to reality - Salon.com
• The single most important fact about American politics - Vox

Liberal Media?

This will help you decide. Watch:

Are the occupations an embarassment to the US?

Why, in the land of the first amendment with its freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, are these protests being villified?

I have to admit amusement when China Daily published an editorial critical of the US News Blackout of these protests, the irony of which was not lost on this commentor from Hong Kong.

Now, Al Jazeera is offering in depth coverage of the protests that contrasts the Fox news view of the protests being offered by commentors here.

If you can get to a demonstration--visit it.

If you can't--look to foreign news for an unbiased look.

Remember this is the voice of the 99%, as opposed to USMSM which is the voice of the 1%.

And the 1% are really scared.

What if the Tea Party Occupied Wall Street?

FAIR.org, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting asks that question while pointing out that the Corporate media skips anti-corporate protests. While diminished, the protests are continuing and the demonstrators are camping out on the Financial District's Liberty Street in support of U.S. democratization and against corporate domination of politics.

The media preference for Tea Party gatherings over progressive activism is well-documented. A September 2009 Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C., garnered far more coverage than a similar gay rights rally the following month (Extra!, 12/09). Thousands of activists at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in June 2010 did not merit anywhere near the coverage accorded to 600 attendees at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville (Extra!, 9/10). The One Nation Working Together rally (10/2/10) brought thousands to Washington-- but little media attention (FAIR Media Advisory, 10/6/10).

At the top of his Current TV show (9/21/11), Keith Olberman said:

So five days of clogging downtown Manhattan, protesting corporate control of the economy, and you haven't heard a word about it on the news?

He later remarked, "If that's a Tea Party protest in front of Wall Street about Ben Bernanke...it's the lead story on every network newscast." And the size of a given Tea Party gathering does not seem to much matter when it comes down to the willingness of the US Media to report the event. When about 200 Tea Partiers gathered in Washington earlier this year (FAIR Blog, 4/1/11), an account in Slate (3/31/11) noted, "There was at least one reporter for every three or four activists."

Of course, the US media is happy to talk about deomcracy and popular movements, but when it comes down to truly popular movements in the US are strangely silent.

How Communism fell

No, one of the reasons was not that they had guns.

It was that reception of western radio and television broadcasts provided alternative news sources to the limited official news sources that were provided the Communist regimes. Strict censorship could not prevent the flow of free information around official channels.

Of course, one needed to be aware of the fact that official propaganda was usually untrue. But according to those who lived through this era, the propanganda was fairly obvious.

While the US does not engage in State Censorship of the press, the corporatocratic authorities have consolidated the media in such a way that it is easily controlled to present a very passive picture of life in the US. This is useful for the rise of the right wing that works against the interest of the majority of US citizens.

Arise, US citizens, the internet is your key to free information if you know how to use it.

Whack-A-Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has outlets all over the country. His media empire includes everything from local TV stations and cable channels to local and national newspapers. With so much control over news media, Murdoch has unprecedented power to influence public debates.

Journalists at Murdoch’s New York Post, Wall Street Journal and FOX News Channel want people to know as little as possible about the phone-hacking scandal that originated at Murdoch's News of the World newspaper in England. The official company line is that the scandal is a political witch hunt orchestrated by jealous business rivals trying to tear Murdoch down. But there are serious allegations that News Corp. employees broke the law, including hacking into the private phone messages of Sept. 11 victims and bribing public officials.

So grab your mallet and hammer away for better media, not bigger media. After you play the game, take action and tell Congress it's time to launch an investigation.

Learn more at our Murdoch and Media Policy resource page.

Learn about Big Media and Media Consolidation

See more at Free Press | Media reform through education, organizing and advocacy

Censored 1998 Saturday Night Live Segment about Corporate Control of Media

One of the frequent gripes of thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhis blog is that the US media has become consolidated into the hands of a few multinational corporations. They are attempting to place the public media in a position where it must take corporate funding to exist by defunding public broadcasting.

While the first Amendment provides for Freedom of the Press, those guarantees only apply to government action, not those of private industry. Private industry is not required to present other opinions and can engage in self-censorship to its heart's content. Likewise, individuals can do what they will to drown out unpopular opinions though astroturf.