Tomorrow is Media Bias Sunday! Or as I like to call it, Librul Media My Ass Sunday. Previously I kept a running tally of all things unfair, unbalanced for years via the infamous TPC Media Bias Sunday Talk scoreboard. Now the series is a regular feature at Radio Or Not.
No matter who’s in the White House or runs Congress, the corporate media nearly always has more GOP guests appearing on Sunday talk shows than Democratic guests, many of them to the right of right. Tea party right. Carly Fiorina “Planned Parenthood ate your babies” right.
This week there was a GOP debate and voting galore on Super Tuesday. Doesn’t matter, because who still dominates the guest lists on Sunday? Republicans. And the only guest on the left this week is Bernie Sanders, who appears on two shows so he counts as “2”.
Time to take a sneak preview of what’s coming up on the Big Media Bias Sunday Talker Line-Up per the AP and the Los Angeles Times… okay? Okay.
This is not a complete list of political guests and is subject to change at the whim of the Corporate Media. I try not to include panels, because they usually include mostly Republicans, and if there are “Democrats,” they’re about as “liberal” as, well, Harold Ford.
And as you may have noticed, Fox is not included, because, well come on, what’s the point?
ABC’s “This Week” — Sen. Bernie Sanders (D); Gov. John Kasich (R); Reince Priebus (R).
CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Reince Priebus (R); Sen. Ted Cruz (R).
CNN’s “State of the Union” — Sen. Marco Rubio (R); Sen. Bernie Sanders (D); Mitt Romney (R).
NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R); Mitt Romney (R).
It’s time to do the math:
Red Rs + Red Rs, carry the pi, divided by D, times Bias, minus even-handedness… calculating…
Total: 8 Rs, 2 Ds. Please feel free to check the addition and political affiliations.
There it is: Your librul media at work.
so let me get this straight. There were a billion R candidates and 2 D candidates but somehow the number of guests on the shows has to be equal? And what happens when one of the two D candidates decline? Maybe they should just not produce the show and put out dead air?
FWIW I listen to pretty much every one of them every week in my car (including FOX, who has Sen Sanders on the show regularly and notes that they do ask Sec. Clinton to appear, she declines) Sen Sanders is treated fairly by all and gets questions that re just as probing and as many softballs as any of the other candidates. (Except maybe Trump he gets poked by pretty much everyone)
Let’s get something else straight. If you click on the link to the archives both at Radio Or Not and at The Political Carnival where I used to reside, the guests nearly every week favor GOP. And if you read my post opening, you’d see that this happens regardless of circumstances.
By the way, I’m not the only one who’s kept track of this. It’s well-documented.
Let’s get one more thing straight: There are now 3 GOP candidates and 2 Democratic candidates. There are no longer “a billion R candidates and 2 D candidates.”
One more thing: Nowhere in my post does it specify “candidates” as being outnumbered. It’s the affiliation of political guests in general. No matter who’s in office, no matter who has the majority in Congress, no matter who’s running for what, Republican guests nearly always outnumber Democratic guests.
point taken, but simply comparing numbers that appear doesn’t tell the whole story. Like I said, at least on Fox they say that they have invited Sec. Clinton almost every week. She has declined.
But like I said, I’m not counting the number of appearances but the content of the appearances. And on all of the shows the interviews are generally probing with a couple of softballs thrown to each candidate.
Do you listen to the shows or do you simply count the guests and report?
Depends on the week. I’ve done both sometimes, but not every time. And yes, numbers matter. If you hear GOP points of view far more than Dem, then their influence and voices are louder. That’s simple logic.
Actually you hear the same thing from them all every week (and even week-to-week) And Rubio was criticized for repeating the same message over and over, but the same words come out of all of their mouths. But I’m probably unusual that I listen to ALL of the shows (CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) every week.
The problem with the “simple logic” is that it tries to boil down a complex issue into a single number. Doesn’t work for me. For example, last week on one of the shows, Sen. Sanders was the lead in and got about 8 minutes. Gov. Kasich was third and got maybe 3. On Fox Cruz was the lead and got the big time.
But your post also brings up an interesting question. In all of the lists, why is Sec. Clinton not on any of the shows? Even Sen. Sanders has the courage to go into the “enemy camp” at FOX and try to press his case. She’s notably absent week after week.
Actually, most of the time on Face the Nation, they put Sanders on after the half hour, after a chunk of their audience no longer receives the show. So his audience is diminished.
Re: Hillary, not sure. All she has to do is ask and she gets on, or her surrogates do. Her surrogates are everywhere on MSNBC. Their paid analysts/contributors on the Dem side are all Hillary supporters, while Bernie is not represented anywhere on the paid contributor roster.
Whether or not “simple logic works” for YOU is irrelevant. We get a much bigger dose of GOP guests and their message, and repetition works for them.
As I said, others have broken this down more scientifically than I have, and they all come to the same conclusion that I have. Go argue with them, they’re probably better able to give you the stats. All I do is keep a running tab of Sunday show guests.