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A couple of Time Warner shareholders went after CNN CEO Jeff Bewkes Thursday in LA at a Time Warner shareholders meeting [...] David Almasi, the Veep of the National Center for Public Policy Research1, a conservative communications and research foundation, is in LA to question Bewkes. Both Almasi and President David Ridenour are Time Warner shareholders.
[...] “Mr. Bewkes, we have urged you many times to make CNN more objective,” Almasi said in his statement. “You have admitted to us in 2014 the need for more balance. We praised you last year after CNN President Jeffrey Zucker also acknowledged this and acted on the need for more diverse views. But bias is apparently worse than ever. As shareholders, we are concerned about the repetitional risk to our investment in Time Warner as CNN appears to be a key player in the war against the Trump presidency.”
Almasi cited a Media Research Center2 study of CNN programing for 14 hours and 27 minutes of news coverage back on May 12. The report concluded that all but 68 minutes were devoted to Trump with 96 guests out of 123 being negative.
[...] “I’m inquiring about CNN’s bias and our return on investment,” Almasi continued in his statement. “Half of the American public – which includes potential and current CNN viewers – voted for Trump last November and supports his agenda. CNN acts as if it is part of the anti-Trump resistance. Are you willing to lose viewers, possibly forever, because of the bias?”
Almasi even threatened Bewkes, saying that Media Research Center plans to alert advertisers about news programs that “peddle smear, hate and political extremism.”
He asked Bewkes, “Are you concerned about advertisers leaving CNN? Will you continue to ignore our appeals for objectivity at the risk to our investment in Time Warner?”
Source: The Daily Caller
1The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a self-described conservative think tank in the United States. In February 2014, at Apple Inc.'s annual shareholder meeting, NCPPR proposed Apple "disclose the costs of its sustainability programs" was rejected by 97% vote. The NCPPR representative argued that Apple's decision to have all of its power come from greens sources would lower shareholders' profits.
2The Media Research Center (MRC) is a politically conservative content analysis organization based in Reston, Virginia, founded in 1987 by activist L. Brent Bozell III. Its stated mission is to "prove—through sound scientific research—that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mth on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:42PM (40 children)
Pandering to both major parties equally is not objectivity.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:04PM (17 children)
It is however, exactly what one "side" needs to survive now that their ideology has become obsessively reality-averse, essentially trying to make confirmation bias into their official political position.
They need some former politician to come out and say "Americans love the freedom of not having reliable healthcare" for balance after presentation of the basic fact that non-partisan analysis of the AHCA suggests 25-35 million people will lose coverage if it's passed. It's not actually true in any objective sense, but saying it "for balance", muddles any serious debate and analysis of the actual problem.
The republicans absolutely need their ideology presented as equal importance to every single piece of objective fact in order to persist in their current form. Trump is the apotheosis of that cultural trend, already.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @04:33PM (1 child)
True reporting would then do the responsible thing and critique the statements. However they won't do that, or if they do it will be with a panel of "experts" who just yell at each other and make things even more confusing.
Sadly there is too much money in propaganda and I don't see a real way forward to get any reliable objectivity. There are plenty of fact checking websites out there, but who can you trust? It is sometimes just a simple matter of phrasing to turn something around, or cast enough doubt on "facts" that people select what feeeeels right.
g'damnit!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @07:14PM
Ya know, you could do some of your own research once in a while. It hasn't (yet) been outlawed by the Republicans. Go ahead and try it some time.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday June 20 2017, @04:37PM (7 children)
Taking just that sentence alone I couldn't tell which political party you were talking about. I'm pretty sure it's true of both.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 20 2017, @04:57PM (6 children)
I acknowledge there's a core validity to your point, but also come the fuck on with that shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @06:46PM (5 children)
Isn't it fun how conservatives have turned the "tolerance and respect" that liberals value against us? SO FUN!
Just another tool in their mud slinging projection kit.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:41PM (4 children)
Uh, no. You got confused.
That's the "Both sides are bad" bullshit, not the "tolerate the implementation of terrible, evil policy in the same way you say we should tolerate the mere existence of people who are different" bullshit.
I know it's hard to keep straight all the things you know they don't actually believe but say anyways because they're intellectually dishonest assholes. There's so many.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @02:06AM
I wasn't confused, and I wasn't thinking jdavidb was making that conservative play. It was more a tangential comment more than anything, but I can see how it messed with the thread of conversation.
Conservatives are really trying hard to validate their current worldview, my only hope is that a few years of this horrifying outburst of pent up rage will cause the more moderate conservatives to reevaluate their positions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @03:31AM (1 child)
To suggest that that is bullshit is pure lunacy. It's obvious that both parties are evil, though I think they are evil to different extents. Just saying "Both X and Y are bad." is not the same as saying "X and Y are equally bad." Unless someone says the latter, false equivalency does not apply. At most, you should ask for further clarification.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday June 21 2017, @09:24PM
Nope, sorry. It's bullshit. If you believe it, you're a bullshit believer.
Centrists have their admirable qualities: peacemaking, intolerance of the shit-slinging nature of modern politics, and statistically speaking, marginally more intelligence than partisans.
Dishonest bullshit detection doesn't seem to be among those qualities, though. Both sides are filled with flawed human beings and ideologies that override sense. One "side", however, has been so consistently leading the charge on making things worse, both in terms of how politics operate, and disregard for ethics in pursuit of ideology, that to say the phrase "Both sides are bad" is almost innately dishonest.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 21 2017, @02:15PM
Hmm. I say both sides serve the same master, and as such are not really "sides" at all, at least, not against each other. I base my assertion on policy outcomes. Real incomes for Americans have been on an uninterrupted 40 year slide. The average CEO makes thousands of times more than the media worker now, as opposed to 7 times more 40 years ago. We went from the Church Commission to total police state surveillance in the same period. All these things have proceeded through multiple changes of administration and congressional majorities from Republican to Democrat and back again. If those two parties were in fact "sides," and different, then the trajectory of those real outcomes would have shifted.
Or perhaps you live in a parallel universe where everything is in fact awesome and you're communicating with us, unwittingly, via a short circuit in the dimensional membrane of existence.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @04:41PM
Oooh! Ooh! This looks like a fun game! Can I play too? Mister Rogers said I can play too!
They need to have someone come out and say that the PPACA is the last, best hope for coverage of millions of americans after presentation of the basic fact that it's not the only approach to providing health care, even absent single payer options, and that the purportedly market-oriented elements of the PPACA aren't actually motivating insurers to offer money-losing policies. It's not actually true in any objective sense, but saying it "for balance", muddles any serious debate and analysis of the actual problem.
The democrats absolutely need their ideology presented as equal importance to every single piece of objective fact in order to persist in their current form. The DNC is the apotheosis of that cultural trend, already.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 20 2017, @06:58PM (5 children)
They need some former politician to come out and say "Americans love the freedom of not having reliable healthcare" for balance after presentation of the basic fact that non-partisan analysis of the AHCA suggests 25-35 million people will lose coverage if it's passed. It's not actually true in any objective sense
I'm sorry, but you're completely wrong. It IS true in an objective sense. There really *are* a lot of Americans who do really do *want* 25-35 million (or more, they don't care) people to lose coverage. There are a *lot* of Americans who don't want other Americans to get something "for free", or at any kind of "subsidized" price. In short, there are a lot of Americans who would be very happy if people who couldn't afford healthcare had to go without. They would be happy if someone who doesn't have thousands of dollars to pay for an ER visit were just kicked outside on the curb and allowed to die. We saw this back in '08 I believe at one of the Republican debates: people were cheering the idea of letting people die on the curb while Ron Paul was answering a question about this.
Remember, America is fundamentally a culture that revolves around "I got mine, so fuck you!". Obviously, not all Americans are like this, but many of the Trump voters are. The entire conservative side is like this to some extent; they don't want people getting stuff for "free" because they hate other groups of Americans. For some, it's rich vs. poor: the people with money don't want to pay any taxes to help those who don't, and would prefer that they died. For many (most?) others, it's racism: they don't want "their" money going to help minorities. For some, it's religion: they don't want "their" money helping people who aren't Christian.
Continuing to ignore this truth about conservatives is muddling serious debate and analysis of the actual problem.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @11:58PM (3 children)
People will "vote against their own interests" when they are conservative. This is always a mystery to the left. I'll explain it.
We have different definitions of "fair". Liberals go with "we all get the same stuff". Conservatives go with "we get what is ours, what we have earned, or what we deserve". Everybody wants things to be fair, but we disagree on the definition of "fair".
Non-psychopaths feel bad about themselves when they know they are being unfair. This is why many of us don't steal things, even when we won't get caught. When a conservative receives help from the government, it feels wrong. It is like theft.
Conservatives might accept help that is offered, especially if their family is in need, but it still feels awful to be receiving a freebie. It's almost like being a thief. People have more needs than just the material needs. People want to feel that they are righteous, just, fair, honest, and all that. Few people wish to be a bad person.
So it isn't just "I got mine, so fuck you!". It's also "I didn't earn this; it isn't right."
(Score: 1, Troll) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:32AM (2 children)
So you think people who can't afford an emergency surgery should just die on the curb, because they haven't "earned" that. Thanks for clearing up how much of a psychopath and a wretched excuse for a human being you are. If you're ever down on your luck financially and need medical care, please be sure to stay at home and die since you obviously don't deserve any treatment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @05:47AM (1 child)
Nice strawman you got there. What is with salty leftist and strawmen?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @03:38PM
It is not a strawman, it is objective truth. It is too bad conservatives are stuck in their blind ideology and can't comprehend anything more complicated then "I shine your shoes and you give me 2 bits!". Seriously, the double think is really bad. We have socialized a lot of things with government and taxes, and only deluded people argue for zero gov / taxes. I guess conservatives just have a hard time thinking outside their immediate bubble of awareness.
So while I understand the moral argument of not getting handouts, it doesn't work for the larger picture and is simply naive. Grow up conservatives, your ideology is strangling the country.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday June 21 2017, @02:35AM
The only problem is, the great DNC 'leader' Hillary said "fuck you, Bernie... I got mine" when she and DWS stole his campaigning funds and support.
She had no problem fucking her own 'partner' in the DNC.
She stole from him, all in the name of winning.
"Obviously, not all Americans are like this, but many of the Trump voters are."
Obviously, this also includes Hillary Rodham Clinton!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:09PM (20 children)
Yet, its far more objective than the existing system where roughly 100% of journalism professors are registered democrats, roughly 100% of journalism grads are democrats, roughly 100% of TV news readers are registered democrats, etc. Asking when CNN will present balanced news is literally like asking the Democratic National Committee when it will present balanced press releases, because its basically the same people in cooperation.
Which brings up the somewhat serious practical problem of if for decades the establishment has only permitted establishment single party politics in an economic field, you can't just wave a magic wand and staff up 50:50. There are basically no Republican journalists, rounded down as a statistical anomaly. You can't staff up a department if there are literally no people.
The answer seems to be immigration. We can replace our expensive lefty journalists with migrant journalists and H1B journalists, obtaining a better more balanced profit while also reducing expenses.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:35PM (9 children)
Are you saying that Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and the National Review are actually staffed 100% by democrats? That's so devious.
How have they fooled millions of conservatives for so long?
What's a genuine source of conservative news, StormFront?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:59PM
My folks were fans of Mark Koernke [wikipedia.org]. Maybe Liberty Tree Radio [4mg.com] is conservative news?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 20 2017, @06:27PM (4 children)
It's not that hard, they are not too bright.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 20 2017, @07:37PM (3 children)
That then begs the question, if it is the case that all journalists and reporters and editors are Democrats and the ones working for Fox, the Wall Street Journal, etc. were only pretending to push a conservative narrative, then why were they doing that? If in fact they're all on the same Democratic team, why would they work at cross purposes by pushing a "liberal" narrative at MSNBC while pushing a "conservative" narrative at Fox? Unless...team red vs. team blue is not their agenda at all but something else, right?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:14PM (2 children)
First, Phoenix, never use "begs the question" for "raises the question", or you will get curmudgeons like myself falling all over their selves to straighten you out.
Why? What better way to get rid of the so-called conservative movement in America than to let them win? We might call it the "Kansas strategy". But I prefer to think of it along the lines of what the American economist, Thorstein Veblen, said was the Chinese approach to national defense. Veblen was proposing a similar approach to the Kaiser in WWI, "Let the Germans win." No better way to destroy imperial ambition than to allow, or even abet, its success!
China, being the Central Kingdom 中国 , had to deal with all sorts of barbarians that would raid its borders and generally cause mischief. But much like with the "Ethics of Parasites", if you want to be a raider, it is in your best interest not to threaten the health, and certainly not the existence of your host. Thus China would often buy off barbarians, or co-opt them into being frontier guards against other barbarians.
Of course, the reason this worked was that if a nation of barbarians were to conquer China, they would lose. And certainly this did happen once, with the Yuan dynasty and Kublai Khan, the grandson of Ghengis. But the thing is, once you conquer China, and make yourself the emperor, you really can't be a Mongol anymore. No more hunting on the steppes, there are affairs of state to tend to. And you cannot be emperor of China if you do not both speak and write Chinese! And the Emperor must dress appropriately for mandatory ritual. So the Mongols took over China. But what happened to them? Within two generations, they were just Chinese.
.
So we let the Republicans win. In fact, even force them to elect Trumpf the Khan, a real estate pillager from the North! And then we let them try to govern. Now they actually can repeal and replace Obamacare, and in fact they will have to. But it will destroy them. In the future, only old people will say, "Read my lips, no new taxes." Then we will know they are the ones who used to be Republican.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:56PM (1 child)
once you have paid him the Danegeld/ You never get rid of the Dane [wikipedia.org]
Power begets power, especially in politics. It shifts cultural norms, and allows entrenchment. Why do you think there are only 2 major political parties, despite so many people begging for a 3rd or 4th choice?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 21 2017, @06:02PM
Um, because in China, there is only one party? And no Danes, except Matt Damon, and I am pretty sure that was fiction.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:25PM (2 children)
There has long been an internal battle at Fox over the message.
Fox is in New York. They hire journalists. Nearly all of them are liberal.
Fox leadership, until just recently (due to death), was conservative. Leadership sort of runs the show of course, but underlings subvert the desired message. Fox was slightly conservative as a result.
The new leadership at Fox is at best uninterested in fighting that fight. We now see Fox rapidly moving left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @01:53AM (1 child)
So instead of Hitler we'll get Carter. I'm OK with this.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday June 21 2017, @02:44AM
Me too!
https://www.planetclaire.tv/quotes/stargate-sg1/samantha-carter/season-two/ [planetclaire.tv]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @03:40PM (1 child)
We can replace our expensive lefty journalists with migrant journalists and H1B journalists
Well, we did have Connie Chung...
But seriously, the only person that ever spoke factually on the TV was Julia Child
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 20 2017, @04:06PM
Even she believed in the seared meat heresy and a couple other oddities.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @04:12PM
Ah, but that's because reality has a well-known liberal bias. I think you can chill, dude.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Tuesday June 20 2017, @05:17PM
Perhaps that's because parroting talking points of the Koch Brothers and their think tanks doesn't require any skills?
Perhaps it is because people that are interested in reporting facts tend to be Democrats?
What your statistic shows is not bias in the media, but the bankruptcy and corruption of views on the right.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 20 2017, @05:21PM
Look, asshole, it's not the Democrats' fault most of you 'cons can't read past the third grade. You're self-selecting out of the job market for journalism.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @05:23PM (4 children)
You are so fucking CRAZY VLM. I really REALLY wish we could have a SoylentNation Meetup just so we can find out who everyone actually is.
From the various times I've actually seen some TV news the "experts" are 99.9% of the time supportive of whatever bias the channel is pushing. There are conservative, liberal, and anarcho/libertarian types all the time! Fox news is almost 100% conservative, along with a bunch of other outlets.
"Roughly 100% of" lololol, come ON. Given the last sentence I actually wonder if you're just trolling, but you say crazy shit so often it is impossible to say.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:44PM (1 child)
We do every day, right here!
I say crazy shit but usually because its true. I'm not so much crazy, as really really good at finding the craziest shit. I've been a human google-bot for half a century. Some people don't think it thru and think that I can find crazy facts means I'm crazy; not so, its all the worlds fault. I couldn't cut and paste this much craziness without a hell of a lot of help from the world. I'm actually boring as hell rational when I'm talking hard engineering, probably because your average transistor engineering datasheet isn't as batshit crazy as, say, the world, or politics, or journalism, or religion, etc.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/just-7-percent-of-journalists-are-republicans-thats-far-less-than-even-a-decade-ago/ [washingtonpost.com]
OK I call "about zero" what in 2013 was 7%. Of course if you extend trend plots and cut about 1% annually then 2017 would be about 3% predicted.
I'm not even going to listen to outrage posts that I dare call 3% "about zero". Spare me.
http://www.mrc.org/special-reports/liberal-mediaevery-poll-shows-journalists-are-more-liberal-american-public-%E2%80%94-and [mrc.org]
(admittedly maybe not the most unbiased source)
http://www.mediaite.com/online/scathing-report-shows-just-how-many-journalists-have-contributed-to-clintons-campaign/ [mediaite.com]
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/report-journalists-are-miserable-over-educated-under-paid-middle-aged-men-mostly/361891/ [theatlantic.com]
No copy and paste, darn near the entire article. The change over time is amazing.
I will admit this is pretty much a grumpy old man issue. People today accept that journalists are staggeringly overwhelmingly left wing. But when I was a kid (a long time ago) it was actually kinda balanced. I suspect some of the people who disagreed with me without having done any research of their own, are also "older" and relying on life experiences in the 80s or something. Even as late as 1980 you were only twice as likely to find a "D" than a "R" unlike now where its nearly impossible to find an "R" journalist other than specialty venues (like fox news or the economist or whatever).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @11:01PM
Thanks for actual links, as usual your reporting of "the truth" is quite skewed as to sound very crazy. Stop with the crazy huh? Then you won't get so many "expressions of love".
So, the truth: Republicans lost a lot of journalists over time, Democrats lost a good chunk, while independents and other rose sharply. To me this doesn't scream "all journalists are liberals" it simply shows that party affiliation has rapidly dropped. I am NOT shocked to see that republicans fell faster than democrats, because the GOP is a cesspool of snakes and liars. The democrats still pretend occasionally to take the high road.
So, you're narrative is false and doesn't even mention the sizable drop in Democrat journalists. #FAKENEWS #SAD #OLDMANWALKING
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 21 2017, @02:29PM (1 child)
Oh that's easy. VLM would be the one with the toothbrush moustache. Then jmorris would show up with one, too, and they'd joyfully, reflexively salute each other with an 'ave' before self-consciously checking the gesture and morphing it into a motion to slick back their hair. Aristarchus and takyon would generally resemble Radagast the Brown, and azuma and kurenai would be dressed all in rainbows cross-cut with aggressive punk touches like spiked collars. Buzzard would show up in a fishing vest. I would be the one in the corner, snarling at everyone.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 22 2017, @03:49AM
I'd actually be wearing what I normally wear, which is black jeans, a black top, steel-toed boots, and some lacy black things under it. Black looks good on me. Trust me, at six feet and with almost knee-length hair I don't need to dress weird to stand out.
I'm almost painfully shy in meatspace. No one would guess I was gay looking at me either. I don't wear pride buttons or anything. Mostly I just want to be left the hell alone, so might not even show up to said meetup. That said, you *might* see me with a handful of Uzzard's teeth and some fragments of that fishing vest of his if he gets uppity.
Ever watch a weird little anime called Azumanga Daiou? Think "early-30s Sakaki, but with a way less privileged upbringing and a grudge against the world."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 20 2017, @11:21PM
Particularly when, as is not totally infrequently the case, both major parties are wrong. This idea that there are exactly 2 sides to an issue, and that the Republicans necessarily represent one side while the Democrats necessarily represent the other side, is complete nonsense.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.