Talk About Blatant Bias

[dkstories]

"It's not what you say as much as how you say it."

 

That's the core lesson I learned when I took Argumentation in college. Watching the local news broadcasts here in Phoenix this morning I was reminded of that lesson by the comments of news anchors on three different stations. The conservative bias, and blatant promotion of a conservative agenda. Here's some examples:

 

1. Janet Jackson's appearance on the David Letterman show and being censored.

 

Facts Reported: Janet Jackson appeared on the Letterman show last night and was censored while discussing the Super Bowl controversy where she bared her breast during the half-time show.

 

Biased Comments: "Isn't it such a coincidence that she gets all this publicity when her new CD comes out today?" Also, the clip showed from the show only presented her discussion with David Letterman where she asserted that she did not plan to bare her breast that obviously (followed immediately by the preceding quote).

 

My problems: This was a great example of the new era of censorship that is starting to occur on television. The word she used that was censored? "Jesus"

The context of her use of the word was expressing surprise at something that the host said. Not since the 1950's and 1960's has the use of the word held any more negativity than "Darn" or "Damn". Both words have been broadcast for the past two decades without censorship, especially in a late-night timeslot.

 

The focus of the news broadcasts was not the word that was used (it was not even mentioned in the news broadcast - I had to go online to get the word she used.

 

There were about four other news items that were slanted in very similar ways that left me asking more questions about the 'facts' I was getting from all three newsbroadcasts. On news about the abortion broadcasts they spent about 1 minute 45 seconds detailing the Bush government position in support of the late-term abortion ban and represented the opposing side with the sentence "Another step in their efforts to stop any limits on abortion." Three channels that I've seen broadcasting on the issue also used very certain terms to describe the people on each side. The terms were "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Abortion". Again terms biased towards the conservative viewpoint. Anti-Abortion activists prefer the term "Pro-Life" because it makes them seem less negative, just as Pro-Abortion activists prefer the term "Pro-Choice" in order to present a less-negative image. Why would an un-biased broadcast use the less negative term for one side but use the more negative term for the other? I saw that on three local channels at the same time.

 

Now I'm not saying that there's not lef-leaning bias in some national broadcasts, especially on the news-sheet style shows like 20/20. However when I watch the national news broadcasts I see a much wider effort to balance the reporting on stories. I have yet to see a local broadcast on Iraq that includes anything more than a short summary of casualties from a particular event in that country. If you want to know how many people that brings the total dead there to, you have to go to a national broadcast or a news-style show doing a special report. That's a roll-back to the reporting during the Vietnam era where news stations didn't report casualty totals because people got more upset the higher those numbers tallied and the Defense Department refused to publish those numbers.

 

Recently I saw pressure on Dick Clark to reveal who he voted for in the last election. I'd like to see all these broadcasters, their managers, and station owners reveal who they voted for. I'm pretty sure from their comments before and after certain stories what the answer is, and their bias is very clear (especially when they report on election stories and make comments derogatory towards Kerry). *sigh*

[Myr]

The vast majority, by a LONG LONG LONG way, of the media is liberal. Take a gander at Dan Blather, Tom Lockjaw, or Peter "Commie" Jennings.

 

Fox News is the only one that provides both sides. The fact that they AREN"T Liberal makes them look ultra-conservative.

[Myr]

oh... and Kerry is full of shit, and anybody with an objective point of view can watch all these videos of him saying he was for both sides of a hell of a lot of issues.

[dkstories]

Here's another news story that made me think about critical thinking when looking at national issues. The issue of Outsourcing jobs overseas is building in this campaign. Just in time, there's a new report being touted that says 'outsourcing jobs overseas actually creates more jobs here at home."

 

I decided to take a deeper look at these claims. If they prove true, they require me to think a little more about the upcoming election and maybe choose differently. So, I looked at the report summary and focused on some key factors of the jobs growth that they claim are directly related to Outsourcing of jobs. I'm not an economist, but thanks to the Department of Labor and a good general education I can come up with enough answers to focus on the important questions.

 

First of all, what kind of jobs are being lost? Most of them are IT related jobs with salaries ranging from the $18,000 range up to the 40-60K range. Most of the jobs lost are in the upper limits of these ranges while the lower paying jobs actually stay in the U.S. (source is the Department of Labor).

 

What jobs are being created? From their slide show:

 

Natural Resources and Mining: 1,046 (all figures from the 2003 column)

Construction: 19,815

Manufacturing: 3,078

Wholesale Trade: 20,456

Retail Trade: 12,552

Transportation & Utilities: 18,895

Publishing, Software, and Communications: -24,860

Financial Services: 5,604

Professional and Business Services: 14,667

Education and Health Services: 18,015

Leisure, Hospitality, and Other Services: 4,389

Government: -3,393

 

Now, I immediately starting having a lot of suspicions about these numbers. Let's look at the big ones that show a great deal of increase. These items includes Construction, Wholesale Trade, Retail Trade, Transportation & Utilities, Professional and Business Service and Education and Health Services.

 

Construction, especially home construction has been booming for the past 8 years and is the backbone of the current economic recovery. My question about construction jobs created by companies outsourcing makes me ask are these because the companies are building new offices, or their executives and managers are buying new homes? As any construction worker will tell you, as long as people are building new homes, new offices, or having extensive remodeling done, the business is good. However when the weather goes bad or people don't want new buildings, the business goes sour. When the construction industry is growing regardless of outsourcing jobs I must ask how directly related are these two facts, what type of long-term stable income do these jobs confer, and notice that the jobs gained are a temporary service to the company or its executives.

 

Wholesale Trade is a field that I looked up at the DoL website to make sure I was right in what it does. Wholesale trade are the people and companies that buy large quantities of goods and then re-sale them to supermarkets, stores, etc. I've actually worked in this industry for one year (making about $12,000 a year, 8 years ago). Here's what the Department of Labor (Bush Administration) says abot this field:

 

"Most workplaces are small, employing fewer than 50 workers.

About two-thirds work in office and administrative support, sales, or transportation and material-moving occupations.

While some jobs require a college degree, a high school education is sufficient for most jobs.

Consolidation and new technology should slow employment growth in some occupations, but many new jobs will be created in other occupations. "

 

So long as sales are good, the companies do good and keep their people on the payroll. Downturns in business often result in immediate lay-off of everyone but management and key field sales staff. Most of the people in this industry make from the low $17,000 (in current dollars not my old salary) to the upper $30,000 range. For senior sales and management, the numbers are much more lucrative. Again, this is a service industry dependent on people buying things and designed to service the direct retailers.

 

The next area, Transportation and Utilities is actually an amalgation of the Air Transportation, Truck Transportation and Warehousing, and Utilities Industry. The Utilities Industry grows when towns and cities grow. They provide power, water, sewage, and similar type services to new houses and business (a direct outgrowth of the Construction industry - so long as Construction grows, Utility jobs will grow as well). The majority of transportation jobs take goods from Wholesale retailers to direct retailers. When you buy something at your local mall, or supermarket it is shipped there, and it's always shipped by truck, train, or plane.

 

Education and Health services are also a leading area of growth indicated as a direct result of Jobs Outsourcing. These are teachers, school administrators, Doctors, Nurses, EMT's, hospital administrators, nursing assistants and similar type jobs. I think very few people will dispute that these areas need more people working in them and have for years, especially since most of the jobs in these areas don't pay that well (think teachers, nurses, and EMT personnel always quitting to go into other areas because they don't get paid enough).

 

Professional and Business services is another amalgation of several fields including Advertising and Public Relations, Computer systems design and related services, Employment services, and Management, Scientific, and technical consulting services (the producers of this report fit into the last category). Many of these are good jobs, telling people what to think, how to think, what to buy, how to buy, and where they will work next. To get these higher paying jobs you MUST have a good college education (many require Masters and higher degrees) and years of experience in various management skills. These jobs are where your corporation management come from, or go to when jobs are scarce.

 

Then there's Retail Trade. Yes, your job at the mall, the supermarket, the local gas station where you make slightly more than minimum wage and anyone trying to support a family from these jobs often work 2-3 of them (unless they are in management). There's a lucky few who can make excellent careers from this field, but the majority of people end-up in dead-end fields.

 

The rest of the areas are very small in growth and show minimal growth.

 

Now, here's my summary of these 90,000 new jobs they create when they outsource: Because they are saving 10.4 billion per year, they have more money to spend on new toys, new homes, better private schools. Their former employees can go work in the fields doing retail sale, wholesale trade, become teachers or nurses, or truck drivers to make sure they can buy what they want when they want. It's not their fault that their employees may not make as much money as they did before, the business leaders now have more money and can buy more things creating more jobs (whether their old employees can continue to support families, have health insurance, or will be able to send their kids to school isn't important).

 

What's really amusing is that the claim of 90,000 net new jobs probably isn't a lie and can be reported and touted on the campaign trail. What's even more amusing is because it requires hours to investigate and lengthy explanations to understand why this is not necessarily a GOOD thing takes far too much longer and won't be reported except on PBS or some other program that no one watches.

 

Outsourcing is good for the economy. Whether it is good for the average American is a different story altogether and up for debate.

[dkstories]

The vast majority, by a LONG LONG LONG way, of the media is liberal.  Take a gander at Dan Blather, Tom Lockjaw, or Peter "Commie" Jennings.

 

Fox News is the only one that provides both sides.  The fact that they AREN"T Liberal makes them look ultra-conservative.

I'd actually say from watching Fox that they provide the conservative side, not both sides.

 

Actually, PBS is the best provider of both sides, and the best of all the news services for clearly delineating when something is being presented as a 'liberal' or 'conservative' viewpoint.

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with presenting information from either liberal or conservative viewpoints. It's very, very difficult to present issues and news without doing so. What the problem is when the major news stations present it as 'news' and unbiased when it really is biased. PBS puts up people from both viewpoints and they all hash it out in some pretty good arguments (NPR does the same on the radio). What gets my goad is when people try to present it as un-biased news.

 

Fox News is just as biased towards the right-wing of American politics as other broadcasters are biased towards the left-wing.

[Myr]

Fox News is just as biased towards the right-wing of American politics as other broadcasters are biased towards the left-wing.

 

oh I wish... I wish there was a channel I could turn to and not have to see Tom Daschle foaming at the mouth and lying his ass off. (He's the Senate Minority Leader D, SD for the uninformed)

 

As a new employee in the manufacturing field here in NY, I can say that my company is hiring. They hired me and one other engineer. Since I started (6 weeks ago), they've hired at least 3 other line assembly workers. The pay isn't the best (for me either), but you can live on it and the benefit package is pretty good. We are moving into a new facility that will be almost 3 times the size of the current plant. We'll be hiring more when we move into the new plant.

 

But over all, I'm very very worried about loss of jobs and businesses in the manufacturing sector. America produces some of the highest quality stuff in the world... but we can't compete with the slave labor market of China.

 

If you want to solve the job problem, ban all trade with China, and make the products they provice ourselves. As long as we have to go head to head against slaves and no environmental protection, there is no way we can compete. Unless, that is, Americans wake up and boycott products not made in the USA.

[dkstories]

Ah, the great Made in America campaign of the early 1980's

 

What fond memories.