An undeniable case of liberal media bias.

[birdog1960]

I take it that you haven't met Aaron Sorkin yet?

 

Read "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg. In his opinion (and I agree with it), it is a conscious and systematic effort by those in charge at leading liberal media outlets (the so-called Main Stream Media) to consistently paint Democrats and liberal ideals as positive. Simultaneously, Republicans are painted as evil and/or stupid; and conservative principals are positioned in a negative light.

aaron sorkin sells. people actually pay extra to watch newsroom. i think hbo is probably the most left leaning "network" there is in regards to their series and docs and they're subscription only. it's about demographics and the folks buying hbo generally like this stuff, including me. you're not likely to see a neocon equivalent of jon stewart on hbo. but it's not about conspiracy. it's about subscriptions and demand.

[Chef Jim]

I'll add what others have said. Most of us don't think it's a conspiracy or an indoctrination it's just the way it is. Those of you on the left who are denying it have your heads in the sand.

[Deranged Rhino]

I take it that you haven't met Aaron Sorkin yet?

 

Read "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg. In his opinion (and I agree with it), it is a conscious and systematic effort by those in charge at leading liberal media outlets (the so-called Main Stream Media) to consistently paint Democrats and liberal ideals as positive. Simultaneously, Republicans are painted as evil and/or stupid; and conservative principals are positioned in a negative light.

 

I actually have... and I stand by my statement.

 

Goldberg has never set foot in a Hollywood writer's room, let alone worked in the industry. He's a freelance journalist, it's a completely different environment. I'm not making claims about reporters or MSM, just the entertainment sector where what you're describing just does not happen as the result of an agenda or deliberate plan to demonize one side over the other.

[Philly McButterpants]

I actually have... and I stand by my statement.

 

Goldberg has never set foot in a Hollywood writer's room, let alone worked in the industry. He's a freelance journalist, it's a completely different environment. I'm not making claims about reporters or MSM, just the entertainment sector where what you're describing just does not happen as the result of an agenda or deliberate plan to demonize one side over the other.

I've never met Aaron Sorkin, but everything I've read about him paints him as an ideologue trying to get a "message" across through his work . . .

 

Goldberg's work has nothing to do with Hollywood, and I never claimed that it does. My point is that the two arms of media (reporting and entertainment) are in lockstep. I don't work in Hollywood, but I and many others are convinced that there is an agenda. To state that it "just doesn't happen" i think is a bit pollyanna . . .

[GG]

I've never met Aaron Sorkin, but everything I've read about him paints him as an ideologue trying to get a "message" across through his work . . .

 

Goldberg's work has nothing to do with Hollywood, and I never claimed that it does. My point is that the two arms of media (reporting and entertainment) are in lockstep. I don't work in Hollywood, but I and many others are convinced that there is an agenda. To state that it "just doesn't happen" i think is a bit pollyanna . . .

 

It happens, but it's not due to an agenda. It's due to what Tom described about the writers' and journalists' individual worldviews and it comes out in the storylines. My beef with it is that the mindset hasn't really changed (and we're not going to drudge up the ghosts of McCarthy) but the quality and standards of the writers have gone downhill as the blogosphere disrupted traditional journalism. Now, you really need to fight through a news story to separate the reporting from opinion.

[Deranged Rhino]

I've never met Aaron Sorkin, but everything I've read about him paints him as an ideologue trying to get a "message" across through his work . . .

 

Goldberg's work has nothing to do with Hollywood, and I never claimed that it does. My point is that the two arms of media (reporting and entertainment) are in lockstep. I don't work in Hollywood, but I and many others are convinced that there is an agenda. To state that it "just doesn't happen" i think is a bit pollyanna . . .

 

You're taking a stance that there's an agenda in the media and then citing facts you read in the media about Sorkin to make your case. That's a little hinky, no?

 

I work in the industry and can tell you the media and entertainment sectors are most definitely not in lockstep. There is not an agenda to make issues on the right look bad or the ones on the left look sympathetic. It just does not happen. I've never once had a producer, studio exec, story editor, director, actor or anyone with a say try to steer my stuff in any direction BUT an a-political one.

[boyst]

I actually have... and I stand by my statement.

 

Goldberg has never set foot in a Hollywood writer's room, let alone worked in the industry. He's a freelance journalist, it's a completely different environment. I'm not making claims about reporters or MSM, just the entertainment sector where what you're describing just does not happen as the result of an agenda or deliberate plan to demonize one side over the other.

not surprised at all you worship a frqud like Goldberg. Goldberg is a hack. His entire rise to fame was propped up as a gimmick to make headlines and sell. His cheesy MO, one simple action, lower your head and go at who ever was in front of him and in his way. It was an awful tactic but it worked. Goldberg's style was bullish and dull. When he was regarded as undefeated it was ridiculous. You're undefeated because WCW said you are. WCW was crap. WWE was much better and the 22-0 gimmick was something you'd love, no surprise. Liberal!

[birdog1960]

not surprised at all you worship a frqud like Goldberg. Goldberg is a hack. His entire rise to fame was propped up as a gimmick to make headlines and sell. His cheesy MO, one simple action, lower your head and go at who ever was in front of him and in his way. It was an awful tactic but it worked. Goldberg's style was bullish and dull. When he was regarded as undefeated it was ridiculous. You're undefeated because WCW said you are. WCW was crap. WWE was much better and the 22-0 gimmick was something you'd love, no surprise. Liberal!

i'm impressed. an analogy between the liberal msm conspiracy and the farce of professional wrestling. awesome . Edited December 6, 2014 by birdog1960

[FireChan]

 

 

You're taking a stance that there's an agenda in the media and then citing facts you read in the media about Sorkin to make your case. That's a little hinky, no?

 

I work in the industry and can tell you the media and entertainment sectors are most definitely not in lockstep. There is not an agenda to make issues on the right look bad or the ones on the left look sympathetic. It just does not happen. I've never once had a producer, studio exec, story editor, director, actor or anyone with a say try to steer my stuff in any direction BUT an a-political one.

 

Are you saying there's no agenda as in a widespread agenda, or that no writers put some of their beliefs into their work?

 

I'm sure they try to be apolitical. But some entertainment reflects current issues, and those issues can be left, or even right, leaning.

 

The Day After Tomorow is basically a global warming fear feature. Although I haven't seen Zero Dark Thirty in its entirety, the torture scene seems like a "necessary" act, no? What about Elysium, the most heavy-handed class warfare movie I have ever laid eyes on? And don't even get me started on that movie with Gary Oldman as a midget.

 

I would bet if you tallied up every serious movie that either tackles or involves a political issue, the majority, although it may be slight, would be more to the left. I don't really care that that's the case, but I believe it is.

[Philly McButterpants]

aaron sorkin sells. people actually pay extra to watch newsroom. i think hbo is probably the most left leaning "network" there is in regards to their series and docs and they're subscription only. it's about demographics and the folks buying hbo generally like this stuff, including me. you're not likely to see a neocon equivalent of jon stewart on hbo. but it's not about conspiracy. it's about subscriptions and demand.

Can you tell me with a straight face that Bill Maher doesn't have an agenda? And truthfully, do you believe that a simple majority of folks subscribe to HBO because of his show, Newsroom, Girls, etc.? Or is it because they can get movies, the Sopranos (in the past, obs), Boar walk Empire, and others? I'm too ceap to subscribe to a premium network, bt if i did, I'd likely go with Starz simply based on content I've seen from free previews.

 

It happens, but it's not due to an agenda. It's due to what Tom described about the writers' and journalists' individual worldviews and it comes out in the storylines. My beef with it is that the mindset hasn't really changed (and we're not going to drudge up the ghosts of McCarthy) but the quality and standards of the writers have gone downhill as the blogosphere disrupted traditional journalism. Now, you really need to fight through a news story to separate the reporting from opinion.

 

Agreed.

 

You're taking a stance that there's an agenda in the media and then citing facts you read in the media about Sorkin to make your case. That's a little hinky, no?

 

 

As i said, i don't work in Hollywood, so i cannot obtain information through osmosis. I believe that he has an agenda; you don't. Agree to disagree.

[Chef Jim]

My brother-in-law posted on Facebook an ABC News story on spirit bears in Cananda. Very cool story about a beautiful animal. And then it turned to be about how an oil pipeline was potentially going through their habitat and if it wasn't stopped it could wipe them out. Talk about a story with an agenda.

[Rob's House]

This was posted by B-man in the Christie thread, but I thought it should be mentioned in this one too

 

CNN Spends Scant 26 Seconds on Bridgegate Report Clearing Christie

 

Back in January, when the Bridgegate scandal surfaced, CNN offered wall-to-wall coverage totaling just over eight hours and 35 minutes of coverage on its first full day and featured the Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, at the center of it all.

 

So, when news surfaced on early Friday morning that a Democrat-led investigation cleared Christie of any wrongdoing, CNN chose to adopt a different approach and all but ignore this news. Through 5:30 p.m. Eastern, the cable network had spent a scant 26 seconds on the report’s exoneration of Christie.[/Quote]

 

What do you deniers have to say about that?

Edited December 6, 2014 by Rob's House

[keepthefaith]

This was posted by B-man in the Christie thread, but I thought it should be mentioned in this one too

 

 

 

What do you deniers have to say about that?

 

maybe "hands up don't shoot"?

[Deranged Rhino]

Are you saying there's no agenda as in a widespread agenda, or that no writers put some of their beliefs into their work?

 

A writer who doesn't put his own beliefs or a little of their soul into their work isn't a very good writer. There are many liberals writing in Hollywood, and many of their beliefs imbue their work and the types of stories they want to tell.

 

But writers, by and large, are on the bottom of the pile in terms of decision makers -- unless it's TV and they're running the show. And it's been my experience that the higher up the food chain you go in the writer's room, the more conservative / right leaning the writers become. On procedural shows, where you find more writers coming from law enforcement backgrounds or JD backgrounds, that is skewed even more. The demos of the average room in this town are usually pretty well mixed politically -- which means when a story is being broken there is a lot of back and forth between a bunch of people with differing politics (from showrunners to producers to the studios/networks).

 

I'm sure they try to be apolitical. But some entertainment reflects current issues, and those issues can be left, or even right, leaning.

 

For sure. Writers pull from what's happening in the world around them. In the past decade plus we've seen the rise of hyper partisanship because of the success of the internet, talk radio, Fox news et al. The country as a whole is more divided politically, and more eager to express their views, than at any point in our history. That's going to be reflected in entertainment -- art always tries to reflect the truth of society as the artist sees it.

 

My argument isn't that there aren't left leaning writers and producers who preach to their audience, but that there isn't an over reaching agenda dictating that only these types of stories make it to air. There's no organized conspiracy (this is coming from ME remember, I love me some conspiracies!) and there's really not much of a slant in this town when it comes to creating because there's too many different cooks in each kitchen. Filmmaking and TV are collaborative mediums, it takes 100s of people, if not thousands, to make them and tons of money.

 

Which is why the real ideologues have to work outside the system. Even Clooney, who might be the most actively liberal filmmaker out there has to finance his own stuff and work outside the traditional studio system -- which is insane considering his mug on screen is one of the few that can still fill a theater.

 

The Day After Tomorow is basically a global warming fear feature. Although I haven't seen Zero Dark Thirty in its entirety, the torture scene seems like a "necessary" act, no? What about Elysium, the most heavy-handed class warfare movie I have ever laid eyes on? And don't even get me started on that movie with Gary Oldman as a midget.

 

I would bet if you tallied up every serious movie that either tackles or involves a political issue, the majority, although it may be slight, would be more to the left. I don't really care that that's the case, but I believe it is.

 

It's been studied a lot -- going back to the Red Scare and McCarthyism. And the issue is how do you define a liberal movie over a conservative one? The best (and the bulk) of films and shows offer counterpoints and multiple viewpoints -- but if you go in looking for slant (on either side) you can find it. The art form itself is so subjective I'm not certain it's easy to define any movie or show but the ones specifically looking for politically charged audiences, as one or the other.

 

Look at Elysium, you say it's class warfare -- and you can make a tremendous case that it is -- but look at the history of Sci-Fi in the pictures. Those films always take the existing world and project outwards. Neil Blomkamp comes from South Africa and grew up in a post colonial Africa during the height of apartheid before moving to Canada. When he projects forward, it's easy to see where his themes come from. I wouldn't argue he doesn't lean left (not that I've met him, I haven't) -- but he had to make that movie completely outside the system and on the cheap. No studio would touch that script when it came out because of that very reason. It took an outside investor, Matt Damon and a finished movie to get distribution.

 

Does that count as a studio movie or a mainstream flick even though it wasn't made inside the system?

 

As i said, i don't work in Hollywood, so i cannot obtain information through osmosis. I believe that he has an agenda; you don't. Agree to disagree.

 

I'm getting my information from seeing how the man works firsthand. You're getting your information from the very media you claim is biased...

 

Was A Few Good Men a left leaning play? Sure, it portrayed some traditions within the military as barbaric but the whole play is about what it means to serve your country. How about Social Network? Here's a movie that tore down a liberal icon in Zucherberg and was pretty thorough in its job of making him look like an !@#$. Even the West Wing is a love letter to a lot of what conservatives hold dear about the country and routinely shows the flaws in liberal ideals.

 

... But because he writes the Newsroom -- a show you've never seen I'm guessing because you don't have HBO, you're convinced he's got an agenda to pander to the left. It's a laughable conclusion to draw.

Edited December 6, 2014 by GreggyT

[DC Tom]

A writer who doesn't put his own beliefs or a little of their soul into their work isn't a very good writer.

 

So you're saying your writing doesn't include your beliefs?

 

 

David Gerrold wrote something in the prologue of one of his books once to the effect that a writer's work doesn't reflect what the writer believes as much as it reflects what the writer is thinking about at the moment. Somewhat ironic coming from Gerrold, since his own beliefs and opinions heavily permeate his work. But it's still a valid point - while we can't completely escape the ecology of our own beliefs, a truly good writer is (or should be) able to step outside that ecology and examine their beliefs from an outside perspective (if they can't, they end up writing really ****ty characters - cocksure one-dimensional protagonists and shallow, unmotivated antagonists).

 

Which ultimately gets back to what GG said: we live in a world of really ****ty writers.

[Deranged Rhino]

So you're saying your writing doesn't include your beliefs?

 

 

David Gerrold wrote something in the prologue of one of his books once to the effect that a writer's work doesn't reflect what the writer believes as much as it reflects what the writer is thinking about at the moment. Somewhat ironic coming from Gerrold, since his own beliefs and opinions heavily permeate his work. But it's still a valid point - while we can't completely escape the ecology of our own beliefs, a truly good writer is (or should be) able to step outside that ecology and examine their beliefs from an outside perspective (if they can't, they end up writing really ****ty characters - cocksure one-dimensional protagonists and shallow, unmotivated antagonists).

 

Which ultimately gets back to what GG said: we live in a world of really ****ty writers.

 

Agree with everything, especially the first sentence and the last. I missed GG's post, apologies, GG. It's an excellent point.

[Azalin]

 

Neil Blomkamp comes from South Africa and grew up in a post colonial Africa during the height of apartheid before moving to Canada. When he projects forward, it's easy to see where his themes come from. I wouldn't argue he doesn't lean left (not that I've met him, I haven't) -- but he had to make that movie completely outside the system and on the cheap. No studio would touch that script when it came out because of that very reason. It took an outside investor, Matt Damon and a finished movie to get distribution.

 

 

Completely OT, but Blomkamp was originally shooting footage for a movie based on Halo 3, but when Microsoft pulled the plug on the project, he did District 9 instead. Here's some footage that Blomkamp shot for the Halo movie - you can see a very similar feel between this project and District 9:

 

http://youtu.be/5BaVb2TlWb0

 

As a complete Halo nerd, I would have loved to see what Blomkamp would have done with an entire Halo movie.

[IDBillzFan]

So a man walks into a Brooklyn synagogue, yells "Kill all the Jews" before plunging a knife into the skull of a 23-year-old student.

 

ABC News Headline: NYPD Officer Fatally Shoots Man After Synagogue Stabbing

 

Way to stay focused, ABC.

[DC Tom]

So a man walks into a Brooklyn synagogue, yells "Kill all the Jews" before plunging a knife into the skull of a 23-year-old student.

 

ABC News Headline: NYPD Officer Fatally Shoots Man After Synagogue Stabbing

 

Way to stay focused, ABC.

 

I heard that on the radio this morning, and immediately thought "I can't wait for the protesters to start chanting 'Kill the Jews! Don't shoot!' while making a stabbing motion."

[GG]

I heard that on the radio this morning, and immediately thought "I can't wait for the protesters to start chanting 'Kill the Jews! Don't shoot!' while making a stabbing motion."

 

Good thing that orthodox Jews are only in tiny parts of Brooklyn