Conference turris::womannotes-v2

I feel _exactly_ the same way about the Greeenpeace mag.
	Mez

    It has perhaps gotten even more lefty in the recent past, D; they used
    to have an editorial policy that stated that they welcome the opinions
    of all women so that a spirited dialog can take place (or words to that
    effect).  A couple months ago they changed it to particularly encourage
    lefty views and (as far as I can tell) discourage conservative views. 
    Seems like a net loss t'me, but I know what caused it: an anti-abortion
    article that got everyone frothing at the mouth and for which they took
    a lot of heat.
    
    Still looks about the same though, I haven't seen any obvious shift in
    the tone of the actual articles, clips, etc.  I read it.  Even though
    I often feel quite smothered in rhetoric.
    
    						=maggie

    
    
    It really feels to me (and this is a deeply held belief) that *all*
    the mainstream news media (TV, Radio, Newspapers, News-magazines) are
    biased at least slightly right of center and at least slightly sexist
    and racist.  So when I get a chance to read a real lefty rag like
    _Guardian_ or a left of center paper like _The_Nation_ or a feminist
    paper like _Soj_ (or gay/les. papers like GCN, Baywindows); I don't
    expect to get _the_whole_truth_ or "objective" "facts."  I expect
    another point of view, one that probably matches my own.  This is
    important to me partly because I like feeling that I'm not the only
    one who sees things the way I do, but it's also important to me because
    I think the alternative papers (and radio stations like NPR) cover
    different stories from the mainstream papers, and they cover the
    "top" stories differently.  So if I read the _Boston_Globe_ and/or
    watch local news on TV AND listen to NPR and read alternative
    papers, I feel like I get more of the story or different angles on
    a story so that I can make an informed decision about it.  Of course,
    it's hard to find time to do all that, but I think it's dangerous
    to think that any one of those sources gives you _The_Truth_.
    
    Justine

I see it pretty much like Justine does.... So much of what I hear and
read comes through the middle-to-upper-class white strate conservative
male filter that I appreciate reading about issues from a view
more compatible with my own.

I really enjoy the Soj.

Kathy

    I totally agree with Justine and Kathy. Since it's impossible to get
    Yer Basic Mainstream Newspaper that isn't slanted in the other
    direction, I  read Sojourner because it's closer to my trend of
    thought.
    
    I think reading publications on almost any subject is a matter of
    reading more than one, if you want "balanced" reporting. 
    
    --DE
    

    I find the comments on the mainstream papers interesting in light
    of a few people I know who think that papers like the Globe are
    hopelessly biased on the liberal side of things.
    
    Bonnie

Re: .6

Bonnie,

A few people I know (my brother springs to mind!) also make comments
about the Globe being hopelessly biased on the liberal side of things.

I think you're right.... It does depend on your starting perspective.
And considering my brother's perspective, for example, I guess the
Globe probably is pretty liberal. Even so, it still passes through the
middle-to-upper-class white strate male filter (in my opinion, anyway).

So I'll keep renewing my subscription to Soj!

Kathy

    I've just sent in a subscription to the new monthly published by the
    Christian Science Monitor.  I find I don't have time to read the paper
    daily, although the reporting is crisp and unbiased IMHO, so I catch my
    news on NPR.  I look forward to the monthly "World Monitor".
    
    Marge

    Marge, you prolly already know this, but for them as don't:  you can
    get more Monitor Radio on WUMB (91.9MHz) in the morning and on XXXX
    (the new folkie station in Concord, I can't remember the callsign,
    1120KHz AM anyhow) in the evening.  On 1120, the *whole* evening is
    given over to international news services (BBC, Deutsche Welle, and CBN
    are the three I've listened to). I just wish my reception were better!
    
    						=maggie

    thanks, Maggie... all my car buttons are on NPR[s] with the glaring
    exception of one "oldies" station... sign of the times. ;^)
    
    Grins

    I love the short little articles in the ahhhem Readers Digest.
    I wish it wasn't so incredibly right wing.
    
    I also read TIME. It is very leftist. I have been known, by my friends,
    as being a tad left of center myself but I do prefer non-bias facts
    when I read. I wish the editors would save the editorials for the ed-
    itorial page.
    
    The Christian Science Monitor has a great news broadcast. I also listen
    to CNN news for impartiality. 
    
    Kate 
    Kate

    'sokay, Marge, UMB is the UMass/Boston station, definitely member-
    supported...and as far as I can tell *very*. responsive to its folkie,
    pluralistic members.  The one on 1120 is commercial, but -again as far
    as I can tell- only do low-key adverts for places like colleges,
    natural food stores, etc. (I really hope they survive!)
    
    						=maggie

    The April, 1990 issue of _Z_ magazine contains an interview with Jeff
    Cohen, Executive Director of FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. 

    Here are some excerpts from Cohen's comments in the interview:

        When you've talked to journalists for years in the mainstream, they
	always tell you, "We have no biases.  We're dead center.  We're not
	left nor right."  I think there is a commonly believed myth in the
	mainstream media that if you are a centrist you have no ideology.
	You issue no propaganda.  You just issue news.  The only people that
	are propagandists are propagandists for the right wing or the left
	wing.  What FAIR has been trying to bring forward to journalists is
	that if you're in the center, your ideology is centrism, which is
	every bit as much an ideology as leftism or rightism.  I've talked
	to journalists and they say, "We ward off propaganda from both left
	and right."  And my question is always, "Well, who's warding off
	propaganda from the center?..."

	...We studied 40 months of "Nightline" because it's considered the
	best and most influential TV news program.  What we analyzed was who
	got on the air and who didn't get on the air as experts to discuss
	foreign and domestic policy.  What we found is that "Nightline"
	tilted toward the conservative white male establishment.  The four
	guests who appeared most frequently were Henry Kissinger, Alexander
	Haig, Jerry Falwell, and Elliott Abrams, all supporters of Reaganite
	policies through that decade.

	What we found is that critics of U.S. policy rarely appeared on
	"Nightline".  Whites appeared 90 percent of the time.  Men appeared
	90 percent of the time.  So in a society that the media always tells
	us is a great, pluralistic society, what you found when you watched
	"Nightline's" experts is that they reflected a very narrow
	conservative elite.  We did certain case studies.  We studied all
	the programs that "Nightline" did on Central America.  We found that
	of the 68 experts that were allowed onto "Nightline" in a 40-month
	period, only two of them represented groups critical of Central
	America policy.  We studied all of the programs that "Nightline" did
	on U.S.-Soviet relations or the Soviet Union, and we found that 50
	percent of the guests, half of the guest experts, were former or
	current U.S. government officials.  Less than 1 percent of the
	guests were representatives of peace organizations.  So you had a
	ratio of 50 to 1.  We also studied the kinds of focuses that
	"Nightline" had in framing the programs.  Obviously they chose
	guests after they decided that the frame would be a certain way and
	they were going to look at certain countries in a certain way.

	We took note of the fact that throughout the Reagan administration,
	the Reagan administration had a media strategy.  That was to try to
	focus mass media attention on every real or imagined peccadillo in
	Nicaragua while simultaneously shifting attention away from the far
	worse human rights offenders in Guatemala or El Salvador, or even
	Honduras.  What we found was a little bit horrifying.  Knowing what
	the Reagan administration's media strategy was, we then looked at
	"Nightline's" coverage and we found that they did about 25 to 27
	programs that focused exclusively on problems or conflicts in
	Nicaragua.  Then we looked at how many programs they did focusing on
	El Salvador or Guatemala or Honduras.  They didn't do a single
	program on any of those countries.  So the ability of the White House
	to set "Nightline's" agenda in foreign policy was really awesome.
	One of the things we've always criticized "Nightline" and most of
	the mainstream media for is for forgetting that in the U.S. we're
	supposed to have something called separation of press and state.

	What we found in looking at "Nightline" is that they were virtually
	a propaganda organ for the state.  They admitted it after our
	findings came out.  The findings were explosive.  When we handed
	them to the TV critics we got major coverage...

	...They responded by saying, "Look, the conservatives have been in
	power.  That's the reason they so dominate our guest list."  Our
	reaction was instant.  Our reaction was, That's what a Soviet TV
	news programmer could have said, pre-glasnost:  "Look, these
	conservative white guys are running the Kremlin, that's why we put
	them on TV every night."  When we responded that way, it was quite
	embarrassing for "Nightline," and frankly I think we won the debate,
	even in the mainstream media, which prior to our study, and a little
	bit afterwards, has always treated Ted Koppel as somewhat of a
	demigod...

	We're currently doing a systematic study of "MacNeil-Lehrer," and
	our initial findings are that in many ways it's worse.  This is the
	program that is supposedly on public television, which is in this
	country a fallacy, that we have something called "public TV."  But
	what we've noticed at "MacNeil-Lehrer" is that while they have a
	full hour to spend on the daily news, their list of experts is even
	more narrow than "Nightline."  They go to the government more
	frequently than "Nightline," which is not easy to do.  It's not easy
	to outdo "Nightline" on even more government spokespersons than they
	have.  We've found historically that conservative groups have really
	liked "MacNeil-Lehrer."...

	We have a quote of Lehrer where staff members were proposing--this
	was years ago--certain public interest leaders or progressive policy
	critics get on TV, and his reaction was, "Oh, come on, don't give me
	another one of these moaners or whiners."  That was Jim Lehrer's
	attitude toward people who criticize policy.

	Recently, some people...out in Berkely attended an event where
	MacNeil was doing a book-signing party at Cody's Books, and as it's
	been reported to me they really peppered MacNeil with questions:
	"How come you never have representatives of the American left
	discussing things on your program?"  And MacNeil is alleged to have
	responded something like, "There is no American left."  So it's
	obvious when you look at "MacNeil-Lehrer," they have typically had
	debates throughout the 1980s such as on the nuclear arms race where
	the hawkish pole would be represented by someone like Richard Perle
	or Casper Weinberger, and debating for the dove side would be
	Senator Sam Nunn from Georgia, who, according to SANE, had a 25
	percent voting record in terms of being a "peace senator."

	So they set up this narrow debate where it's someone from the far
	right debating someone from the near right on foreign policy.  On
	issues of Iran/Contra and covert operations in Central America,
	typically the person representing the dove pole, the critics' pole,
	was Senator Boren from Oklahoma.  Again, he's somewhat on the near
	right on these issues, and he's be debating someone further to his
	right.  So what you find when you look at "Nightline" and
	"MacNeil-Lehrer" is that generally half of the political spectrum
	is excluded form the debate, and that plays a very important opinion
	shaping role for the mainstream journalists.  Many print journalists
	swear by "Nightline."  They watch "Nightline" and then go to sleep
	and the next day they write their stories...

    The next part of the interview contains a rather lengthy section that
    compares the PBS histories of right-wing columnist John McLaughlin
    versus Jonathon Kwitney on the left.  Kwitney had a program, "Kwitney
    Report", which came out of WNYC in New York.  His investigative reports
    made his parent station nervous, because it offended the right-wing
    politics of corporate sponsors, so his show was eventually terminated. 
    Meanwhile, McLaughlin's views attracted corporate sponsorship, as many
    companies (such as Mobil Oil) decided to fund more than just ballets and
    "highbrow culture", and wanted additionally to fund right-wing programs
    on PBS, such as what is offered by McLaughlin.

    Concerning NPR, he comments:

	NPR, years ago, used to provide somewhat of an alternative in their
	longer-running features, their ability to go more in depth.  But
	what's happened in the last few years is a very disturbing process
	where their product has become more and more mainstream.  You see
	virtually the same experts on television, the same conservative,
	narrow experts, from center to right, appearing on NPR...NPR in some
	cities is unfortunately the only alternative.  Many cities don't
	have Pacifica Radio, which is a true alternative.  So what's
	happened lately, especially since FAIR was born in 1986, is we're
	telling NPR fanatics to quit complaining to FAIR and start taking
	their complaints directly to the NPR stations and directly to "All
	Things Considered," "Morning Edition," and "Weekend Edition."
	That's happening more and more.  I think the NPR journalists are
	generally tougher, better than the typical mainstream reporter.  If
	they hear from an aroused public, it's possible that NPR could get
	back on track and be more of an alternative, which is how it started
	out many years ago...

    Regarding an incident last year involving an inaccurate story reported
    by NPR commentator Daniel Schorr, he comments:
	
	Daniel Schorr is unfortunately a cold warrior when it comes to
        foreign policy.  He's in no way an alternative voice on foreign
        policy.  In fact, he picked an Associated Press canard that had
        obviously been planted by U.S. intelligence.  We traced this AP lie
        to its bureau in Tokyo.  It was this lie that Nicaragua had endorsed
        the Chinese crackdown on the students in Tiananmen Square.  Daniel
        Schorr took this lie weeks after it had already been retracted by
        Associated Press because of the work FAIR, Alexander Cockburn, and
        other media critics had done to prove it was a lie.  He took this
        hoax that the Nicaraguan government supported the Chinese crackdown
        and put it on a commentary on NPR, which was picked up as an op-ed
        piece in the _New_York_Times_.  What was interesting is because a
        lot of NPR listeners are part of the FAIR media activist network,
        they knew instantly when they saw it in the _New_York_Times_ and
        heard it on NPR, "My God, Daniel Schorr has dredged up this hoax
        that's already been retracted by Associated Press."  They deluged
        NPR with angry letters and calls.  Pretty soon, NPR apologized and
        Daniel Schorr was sending out a form letter to NPR listeners saying,
        "I'm sorry I got it wrong.  I didn't know it had been retracted."
        The _New_York_Times_ never retracted it at all, and I think that's a
        mark of what I'm getting at here.  That as mainstream as NPR
        executives want it to become, there are many journalists at NPR, and
        most of its listeners, that don't want it to be just another
        _New_York_Times_ over the air.  There is this militant listenership
        that, if mobilized, could exert some rectifying influence on NPR. On
        the other hand, the _New_York_Times_ just ignored the fact that they
        had gotten it wrong...
    
    -- Mike

    Thanks, Mike...that certainly rings true to me.  Since starting to
    listen to the international services again I've caught NPR out several
    times, and I've become much more conscious of how mindless some of
    their "reporting" is; they *seem* to be questioning things, but the
    questions are all on the surface and never touch the really fundamental
    issues.  
    
    They remind me of the folks who, when the phone company or the
    insurance companies ask for a 50% rise in rates and the state
    commission only grants 35%, come out all over congratulatory and
    without seeming to understand anything about budget gamesmanship talk
    about how consumer-oriented the commission is.
    
    						=maggie

    It is definitely interesting listening to international broadcasts,
    although, unlike you, Maggie, I am basically restricted to English
    language programming (which isn't a total problem, since just about
    every major SW broadcaster has at least some English language
    broadcasts.)  Unfortunately, I recently broke my digital shortwave
    receiver, and all I have to listen with is an old analog Radio Shack
    behemoth that I was not able to give away, let alone sell.  I would buy
    another digital SW radio, but since I just bought a computer I am
    rather broke at the moment.  And trying to find an exact frequency with
    my old analog receiver is, well, frankly a pain.  Modern technology has
    spoiled me, I guess.

    -- Mike

    Mike, thanks for taking the time to type in the article.  Do you happen
    to have the address of FAIR?
    
    tnx,
    Marge

    Sad to say that the most probing, digging, investigative reporting
    done today (on the whole) is done by.......Sports reporters.
    
    Sports offers more more scandal and mudslinging that sells newspapers.
    
    On the other side of investigative columnists are the Howie Carrs
    and the Mike Barnicles who report the "connections" and the scandal
    in local politics that people have become anestetized to. Now all
    we get is ...."Homicide #45 happened in Milton." 
    
    Journalism has to be somewhat left or somewhat right or it's milktoast
    and no one wants milktoast news.
    
    Ken

    In a recent issue of "Mother Jones" they came up with the same results
    as the survey Mike posted. Nearly all of the "experts" consulted on
    network news were of the white male conservative establishment. That's
    why I have to laugh whenever a conservative yells his (usually it's a
    he) head off about the left wing media in this country.

    I consider myself decidedily moderate but here in Colorado Springs that
    makes me a commie pinko dupe. liesl

>  .3 by SULLIVAN 

>    It really feels to me (and this is a deeply held belief) that *all*
>    the mainstream news media (TV, Radio, Newspapers, News-magazines) are
>    biased at least slightly right of center and at least slightly sexist
>    and racist. 

Yes, that's how I feel too --  except that second "slightly" made me laugh :) 

I like Sojourner.  Going through 20 or 30 newspaper pages with
stories, news, announcements, and ads about and for and by women is
invigorating.  Some of the rhetoric does come from the "imperialistic
warmonger" school of writing ... but it sounds odd primarily because
we are not used to it.  Other equally goofy phrases seem normal
because we are used to them: "America is the greatest nation on Earth."
Sojourner lets me see how goofy our "normal" world can be.

Two other news/talk sources:

   o MIT Radio, 88.1 fm, Wed. night, 7-8 pm 
   o WMFO radio, 91.5 fm, Tues morn, 7-9 am

I haven't heard either in quite a while ... but both shows are by, 
for, and about women.)

    There is another magazine that shows what could well be called the
    'far left' point of view with a similar name...it is called Sojourners.
    It is the voice of liberal Christians - those involved in issues like
    hunger and justice in south america, etc.. for those who are
    comfortable with Christian activism (I lent a copy of it once to a =wn=
    writer who did not care for it because it is Christian) it is an
    excellant window from the liberal/compassionate/activist point of view.
    
    Bonnie

 I disagree with the notion that the media is right of center.

 The media may well use white males as experts in a disproportionately large
number of cases, but that doesn't make them right wing to me. It's the positions
that they take while ostensibly reporting. It's the verbiage they use to allow
certain views to be taken more seriously, and others to be essentially dismissed
that makes me feel that the media is left wing. For me, it's not who says it, 
it's what's being said that makes the media (by and large) seem to be leftist.

 If the Boston Globe is "rightist," what language is the Sojourner published
in? Russian? :-)

 The Doctah

    
    Well, since magazines are being listed here, my favorite, and one I
    would miss if it wasn't published is the Utne Reader.  It's subtitled
    "The Best of the Alternative Press", and that's what's printed between
    its covers (I think I've seen things from Sojourner in there).  It's 
    printed 6 times a year and issues usually have a theme (can't remember 
    any right now, if no one else jumps in to sing praises, I'll check out
    a couple of the back issues and put some more info in here).
    
    Available at "better newstands".
    
    CQ

    As a Utne Reader subscriber, I agree completely with Christine.  Not
    only does the Utne Reader reprint articles from the alternative press,
    but it also provides information about alternative publications
    (including subscription rates and addresses).  It is an excellent
    source of alternative information that is excluded from the mainstream
    press.
    
    On another note, the address of FAIR, for those who are interested, is
    contained in the article I cited excerpts from.  It is:
    
    	130 W. 25th Street
    	New York, NY 10001
    	(212) 633-6700

    -- Mike

    
    "alternative press"..? and what might that be..?

>    "alternative press"..? and what might that be..?

That's when you put the crease down the *sides* of the pant legs.

... or is it when you start stomping raspberries because you've run out of
    grapes?

    Poor devils.  It's when you use grape juice after you've run out
    of ink.
    
    							Ann B.