Young Conservative Movement

Posted by: Joe
Posted on: February 1, 2006 01:37 AM

Since when is being critical having liberal bias?

Posted by: Andrew
Posted on: February 1, 2006 02:07 AM

Usually when people talk about Fox News being biased, the accusation is that they're biased to the RIGHT. I think your statement says more about your own views than Fox's.

Posted by: J
Posted on: February 1, 2006 03:16 AM

Let's take a bet: Bush promises to halve the deficit by 2009? So instead of $450 billion, it will be $225 billion. It is still too much, and by that year, the national DEBT reaches almost $9 TRILLION!

But in correction to the Fox News article, the point of the State of the Union is to showcase his goals and accomplishments, and he only has an hour to address the nation.

For Social Security, he only has a plan for younger workers, but there is no realistic plan to actually keep the entitlement program solvent. It will still be on track for insolvency even if his proposals pushes the date a few more years.

Posted by: Chad
Posted on: February 1, 2006 09:59 AM

Being critical of the president in an article is liberal bias. This is an article. This is not an op ad. An article is supposed to report the news... not express their hatred for the president.

Posted by: Brian Gray
Posted on: February 1, 2006 11:35 AM

Wow, I guess I read a different article. I do not see any "hatred" demonstrated in the article. Each section of the article described Bush's stance and than provided some facts to either support or counteract his statements.

Posted by: Andrew
Posted on: February 1, 2006 11:48 AM

Being critical of the president in an article is liberal bias.

Wow.

I can't believe I just read that.

Posted by: Chad
Posted on: February 1, 2006 02:26 PM

That's all fine and dandy in an EDITORIAL! That is where you support opinions with facts. In a news article, you support facts with more facts.

Posted by: Chad
Posted on: February 1, 2006 02:30 PM

The liberal media are going as far as passing their very negative feelings about the president as "news". That is unethical and wrong. That is a disgrace to the career of journalism.

Posted by: V
Posted on: February 1, 2006 02:44 PM

what if the facts disagree with the president?

From the article

Noting that the government must help provide health care for the poor and elderly, Bush asserted, "We are meeting that responsibility."

It is true that a new prescription drug benefit took effect this year, a new entitlement for up to 42 million disabled and older people. But implementation has been rocky: Mark McClellan, the administration's top Medicare official, recently acknowledged that tens of thousands of recipients probably didn't get medicine due to confusion and computer glitches, prompting some lawmakers to seek an extension of the May 15 signup deadline to work out the snafus.

An incomplete picture also emerges on health care for the poor.

The number of uninsured has increased nearly 5 million since Bush took office in 2001, to 45.5 million in 2004, two-thirds of the total from low-income families, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

And while total federal spending on the health care "safety net" for the uninsured edged up from 2001 to 2004 — adjusted for inflation, slightly more than 1 percent — spending actually decreased from $546 to $498 per uninsured person due to the jump in uninsured, the Kaiser group said.

Bush actually is expected to propose curbing the growth of benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid in his 2007 budget request next week.

How is it biased to quote "the administration's top medicaid official" or to state that "The number of uninsured has increased nearly 5 million since Bush took office in 2001"? Is the number of uninsured now an "opinion?"

Posted by: Chad
Posted on: February 1, 2006 02:56 PM

You cannot argue that the writer of this article did not pick out all the negative facts and opinions in order to paint a negative image of president Bush. The article should report what was said in the state of the union address... not question it. There is a place in the newspaper for that. It's called the Editorial Page.

Posted by: Brian Gray
Posted on: February 1, 2006 03:04 PM

Reporting what the President did NOT say is just as important in the news. That is what this article does. It is not soely an opinion-piece as you suggest. Sometimes the news is just negative. Not all the news about a President is rosy.

Posted by: V
Posted on: February 1, 2006 03:23 PM

The article should report what was said in the state of the union address

I think that's called a "transcript," and it's already available in numerous places.

Wikipedia defines journalism as

Journalism is a discipline of collecting, verifying, analyzing and presenting information gathered regarding current events, including trends, issues and people.

I think that is a much more accurate picture of what a journalist is. They're not merely transcriptionists. If the only purpose of the news is to regurgitate what public officials say, why even have the news? Can't those same officials just publish websites or newsletters? Seems to me that you could just cut out the middleman.

Posted by: Chad
Posted on: February 1, 2006 03:40 PM

A journalist should collect, verify, analyze and present information. They should not put persuasive material in it.

Posted by: Chad
Posted on: February 1, 2006 04:00 PM

Let me modify what I had said. A journalist who works in the editorial department, is running a blog, or is writing for something else where opinions are expected can write opinionated articles.

Posted by: Shruti
Posted on: February 1, 2006 04:41 PM

After a lot of observation over the last few years I have come to the conclusion that newspapers should present news stories with as much slant and bias as they like, but to present many points of view. It is impossible to be completely unbiased, and newspapers in the past never used to try. Now they do, and come out very slightly on the liberal side (according to an article that you posted some time ago).

In this case, it is clearly a piece pointing out that issues are more complex than the President made them out to be. It is careful to point out the successes but it is trying to give us more depth than just parroting back what the President said. Obviously, what the President said is going to be biased in favor of himself - any idiot would know that. I listened to the speech and would find no value in an article that merely parroted it back. The value in an article like this comes in its investigation into what the President said and what it might mean for our country.

And you know what? I didn't know before I read this article that math scores had risen. If it was purely an "I-Hate-Bush" article, they wouldn't have even bothered to mention that.

Posted by: Paul
Posted on: February 2, 2006 03:30 PM

You know what is so great about this, though? Is that, everyone knows that Fox is biased and hates the president. And yet, when they do it, everyone gets shocked and appaled by it. I don't watch nor read anything Fox News puts out because I know that it will be either biased or sensationalized. In the unlikely event that I do read/watch something from Fox, I take it with a grain of salt knowing where it is coming from. Just my thought.

Posted by: Mike
Posted on: February 2, 2006 05:55 PM

Where were there opinions in the article? This was an analysis of Bush's statements, not a critique. If a government agency or official gives out a report that, say, estimates a programs cost, and then a newspaper then runs an article analysing the figure and showing it to be wrong or misleading, is THAT an opinion? I'd be curious to see you pick out a paragraph and show why it's biased.

Overall, the thing is the SOTU is always a bait-and-switch.

Posted by: Joe
Posted on: February 3, 2006 12:53 AM

The Observer this week is full of liberal bias. Here is a sample:

Sex & Dating: Newsom's Day

Posted by: Andrew Witte
Posted on: February 4, 2006 01:23 PM

Joe, that's an editorial.