Clipmarks | Bias Clips

Gallup Daily: McCain Moves Ahead, 48% to 45%

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:24:04 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: McCain enjoying increase in support following convention

Survey Methods

For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.

The general-election results are based on combined data from Sep. 4-6, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,765 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

To provide feedback or suggestions about how to improve Gallup.com, please e-mail feedback@gallup.com

Clip Source: www.gallup.com

PRINCETON, NJ -- The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update shows John McCain moving ahead of Barack Obama, 48% to 45%, when registered voters are asked for whom they would vote if the presidential election were held today.

These results are based on Sept. 4-6 interviewing, and include two full days of polling after the conclusion of the Republican National Convention last Thursday night. McCain has outpolled Obama on both Friday and Saturday, and is receiving a convention bounce just as Obama did last week.

Tomorrow's report will be the first in which all interviews were conducted after the conclusion of the convention. Gallup measures convention bounces by comparing candidate support in the last poll done entirely before a party's presidential nominating convention begins with the first polling conducted entirely after its conclusion.

(Click here to see how the race currently breaks down by demographic subgroup.)

Tags: gallup poll daily tracking, mccain 48%, obama 45%

Racism Reason For Palin's Appeal - B.Williams

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:44:52 GMT

clipped by: davboz
clipper's remarks: MSNBC crew nervously blames Repubs for their bias.

Clip Source: newsbusters.org

Subtract the subdued demeanor and the good tailoring, and how much difference is there between Brian Williams and Keith Olbermann? Take Williams' post-Palin speech analysis. Was the Nightly News anchor suggesting Palin's appeal is rooted in racism? He certainly made a clarion call to his fellow MSMers to keep up the good fight against her. Have a look at the video, here. First is a clip of Ann Curry interviewing a woman delegate after the Palin speech, then Williams, then Joe Scarborough this morning.

Passive-Aggression, Lies, Hypocrisy

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:35:21 GMT

clipped by: davboz
clipper's remarks: In their very denials, they blatantly show their bias.
Watching MSNBC, I think it is possible that often they really don't think it is showing. Panel members, after multiple exchanges where 5 or 6 (against 1) make snide references in their "analysis", show disdain contrasting wildly with the fawning speech reserved for the DNC & Obama, unashamedly lashing out at speakers they felt personally offended by,...they end up putting together a pair of collective presentations that, to a bipartisan observer, are like night and day. THEN have the balls (incldng. Rachel Maddow)to come off angrily defending their smear-style "journalism" dripping with partisan unevenness of tone, and nastiness, while framing the accusation as - (get this) - a tired Republican tactic. Oh my God!
I think they may actually even believe it.
How are humans so removed from their own behaviors, I wonder, whether in personal or private. Denial of this nature is to the level of a serious addiction or mental disorder. I

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

There is little that's more insidious than passive-aggressive behavior. It's a way of trying to obscure nastiness, a deception used to avoid responsibility for mean words or actions.

When someone is offended by this camouflaged hostility the antagonist puffs up in righteous indignation, ridiculing his target for being overly sensitive or misconstruing his intention. The smokescreen can confuse just about anybody

It's a attempt at having it both ways. It is sneaking in a sucker punch and then ridiculing the person who might gasp a complaint about such a low blow.

It's passive-aggressiveness...deception at its worst. It is the behavior of someone who wants to do or say something malicious and get away with it. It has no place in honorable politics. It needs to identified and condemned, as well as those who try and get away with it.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Clip Source: newsbusters.org

Us Magazine Disgrace

Liberal gossip tabloid attacks Sarah Palin after puffing Michelle Obama

Do These People Hear Themselves?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:11:15 GMT

clipped by: davboz
clipper's remarks: Red-faced and defensive, hand in the cookie jar.
BUSTED.

Clip Source: newsbusters.org

During MSNBC's Wednesday night live coverage

Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Tom Brokaw and others scoffed at the idea they had an anti-Sarah Palin agenda. Brokaw depicted the charge of liberal bias as a mere "tactic," by the GOP, Matthews played it off as just "an old, old conflict," and even tried to write off the media's fascination of Obama, as just a mere fondness of "the new."

Brokaw dismissed the contention of any real liberal bias:

This is a political tactic on their part. And the shorthand is, "Let's go after the media." And are they sorting out, for example, Fox or conservative blogs or others who have, in fact, been defending all of this? No what they want to do is just raise the specter that everything that America sees is controlled by a tiny band of Eastern liberal elites.

Norah O'Donnell insisted:

There is one important thing to point out. The media is not attacking Sarah Palin. The media has done investigative pieces, in their job, about the way Sarah Palin was chosen.

Political Analyst~OR~Partisan Activists???

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:35:29 GMT

clipped by: davboz
clipper's remarks: Olbermann's dominance brings out the worst in Matthews. Even Brokaw. They are both more balanced, when KO is nowhere in sight. An insightful eye can tell the difference when responding to Keith they are timidly stammering for words far enough in the extreme left bias to satisfy him. And their facial expression shows it - clearly. They are resentful, pressured, and under the thumb of Keith Olbermann.
At a later point, with Olbermann gone, they are confident, balanced and natural.
Myself, I can ferret out this kind of passive-aggressive, irresponsible phony journalism. There are just too many out there that cannot see that the line between news and amateurish blog has disappeared ~ probably for ever.

Clip Source: newsbusters.org

[7:03pm]

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I have the sense that the Republican image-makers, the ballyhoo boys, know exactly what they're doing. They're setting up a David and Goliath in this sense. Governor Palin as David, us as Goliath. This is showbiz, they know what they're doing. It might work, we'll see. Big night, tonight for the Republicans and their ballyhoo boys.

KEITH OLBERMANN: How long, if it works, can it work? You cannot maintain a permanent protest, you can't file a constant appeal to the refs that never ends. It must have a concluding point, must it not?

MATTHEWS: Richard Nixon did it for many years. It can be done. You can put up, you can create a continual tension between your political party and what you describe as the establishment. You can continue to portray yourself as the underdog in a battle in which you, in fact, carry all the political weight of the government. It's been done before and I think they're gonna try it one more time tonight.

...

GOPAC Chairman Michael Steele: Campaign Coverage 'Has Been a Joke'

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:54:19 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: I just look at how they chewed up Hillary to get to Barack. And so, you know, what they were trying to figure outwho's the best player to go up against the Republican establishment.... Certainly the race issue would be one of those landmines that they figured the party would have to deal with. So I think in terms of how the media has approached this more broadly speaking has been pitiful.... You know as well as I do, if the shoe were on the other foot, they would be scrutinizing the heck out of a black Republican or a Hispanic Republican [running for president].

How true.

Great video: 3:35

Clip Source: newsbusters.org

[Video]

Yesterday NewsBusters caught up with GOPAC chairman and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele at the Xcel Center, site of the Republican National Convention.

Steele told us the coverage of the campaign so far has "been a joke," and that "if the shoe were on the other foot, [media] would be scrutinizing the heck out of a black Republican or a Hispanic Republican" running for president.

Some excerpts of that interview are below, starting with Steele's reaction to the disparity in scrutiny of Sens. McCain and Obama (video available here):

It's been a joke, quite frankly... there's been a coronation, there's been facilitation of his [Obama's] agenda, but there hasn't been any serious scrutiny of where this two-term state senator comes from, what makes him tick, what he really believes, what is his philosophical orientation, and it's, I think, rather unfortunate. [...]

Tags: gopac chairman/fmr.md.lt.gov.michael steele, media bias, obama agenda

Fred Thompson Slams Media Bias Against Palin as 'Abysmal'

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:26:45 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Fred Thompson slams MSM on Palin coverage

Fred Thompson will forcefully defend the selection of Sarah Palin tonight in a speech Republicans are characterizing as “red meat.” He will argue that the feeding frenzy over Palin’s is the result of “panic” from the Democrat-friendly mainstream media.
“What a breath of fresh air Governor Sarah Palin is. She is from a small town, with small town values, but that’s not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family. Let’s be clear, the selection of Governor Palin has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic. She is a courageous, successful, reformer, who is not afraid to take on the establishment.”

http://www.savethegop.com/2008/09/02/fred-to-slam-msm-on-palin-coverage/

Clip Source: newsbusters.org

Former presidential contender and senator Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) told bloggers today that the bias against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) was "abysmal."

At the RedState.com-organized and Google-sponsored breakfast, Thompson demurred when asked if he'd accept a Cabinet slot in a future McCain administration, joking that he's ready for more work in Hollywood, which would be a welcome break from the duplicity and insincerity of the media on the campaign trail.

[Video]

Tags: fred thompson (r-tenn.), google/red-state.com breakfast

Probability overrides the intuitive.

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:20:49 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "The reason that our folk intuitions so often get it wrong is that we evolved in what evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins calls “Middle World”—a land midway between short and long, small and large, slow and fast, young and old. Out of personal preference, I call it “Middle Land.”

The middle, the plain is a big bias that shapes and limits one's perception.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Why Our Brains Do Not Intuitively Grasp Probabilities

Have you ever gone to the phone to call a friend only to have your friend ring you first? What are the odds of that? Not high, to be sure, but the sum of all probabilities equals one. Given enough opportunities, outlier anomalies—even seeming miracles—will occasionally happen.

Thanks to our confirmation bias, in which we look for and find confirmatory evidence for what we already believe and ignore or discount contradictory evidence, we will remember only those few astonishing coincidences and forget the vast sea of meaningless data.

The average person has about five dreams a night, or 1,825 dreams a year

With an annual death rate of 2.4 million Americans, it is inevitable that some of those 54.7 billion remembered dreams will be about some of these 2.4 million deaths among the 300 million Americans and their 45 billion relationship connections. In fact, it would be a miracle if some death premonition dreams did not happen to come true

Tags: belief, probabilities, perception bias

Media Bias 101

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:57:34 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT

Clip Source: moonbattery.com

In case anyone was wondering whose side the shallow supermarket rag Us Weekly is on:

This pretty much sums up the role of the media in this election.

Unsurprisingly, Us Weekly's publisher Jann Wenner, who also publishes the equally contemptible Rolling Stone, is a big Obama donor.

Tags: media, bias, liberals, toilet paper

Sexism and Sarah Palin

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:33:22 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: womencount.org

It started Friday afternoon with John Roberts on CNN, and then in a slow build over the weekend it became clear what the leading sexist charge would be against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin: Is it appropriate for her to accept the vice presidential nomination given the magnitude of her current family responsibilities?

The obvious retort is whether anyone would ask the same question of the father of a four-month-old with Down Syndrome and a pregnant teenager. We think not.

The very notion that Sarah Palin should not have accepted this nomination because she is a mother with demanding challenges underscores just how far we have to go.

WomenCount was born of the passion its founders had for Hillary Clinton’s clear view of social issues and progressive values. We cannot pretend that Governor Palin meets any standard of progressive politics or social values.

But regardless of the candidates’ ideology, we will work to stamp out sexism when we see it on the campaign trail.

Tags: palin, women, election, politics, msm, media, bias, sexism

Who Vetted Obama?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:09:17 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT
clipper's remarks: "The leftist DailyKos website started digging into Palin's past and claimed that her fifth child wasn't really hers. The charge fell apart when pictures surfaced of the governor pregnant with the child.

Nevertheless, the media, which have been so quick to ignore questions about Obama's background, joined in the inquiry into Palin's private family matters and forced the governor to disclose that one of their daughters is pregnant out of wedlock. This is what passes for investigative reporting these days.

A daughter's pregnancy, of course, has nothing to do with whether Palin is fit for the job of vice-president or even president and is entitled to a security clearance. But one's associations with communists who hate the United States might emerge as a cause for concern. "

Clip Source: www.rightsidenews.com

September 2, 2008
By Cliff Kincaid
The Washington Post reported that John McCain's vetting process for picking Governor Sarah Palin included an FBI background check. Other reports dispute this. But when did the FBI investigate Obama? Who vetted him?

We are living witnesses to an incredible media double standard, whereby a Republican vice-presidential candidate's personal life is being torn apart, while the Democratic presidential candidate continues to get a free ride. Obama has a 30-year history of associating with unsavory characters, beginning with communist Frank Marshall Davis and continuing with Jeremiah Wright and communist terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, which should disqualify him from getting a security clearance in the government that he wants to run.

But the media would rather talk about Republicans and sex.

Tags: liberals, lunatics, obama, media, bias

Cable news coverage: Biden vs Palin

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:28:08 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: newsbusters.org

Now that the dust has settled on both parties' vice presidential picks, it's time to take a look at how the media treated Joe Biden and Sarah Palin in the crucial early hours after they were announced as running mates.

Looking at the transcripts of CNN, FNC, and MSNBC during the two "primetime" hours of the day John McCain and Barack Obama announced their running mates, a trend becomes quite clear: The media were much more likely to report negative information about the Alaskan Palin than the Delawarean Biden.

Palin News 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM 8/29/08
	CNN	Fox	MSNBC
Positive	15	15	4
Negative	27	10	20
Neutral	26	37	13
Total	68	62	37

BIDEN News 7:00pm to 9:00pm 8/23/08
	CNN	Fox	MSNBC
Positive	29	25	47
Negative	14	31	14
Neutral	65	51	61
Total	108	107	122

Tags: media, cable, bias, fox news, msnbc, cnn, politics, biden, palin

Subliminal learning.

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:14:55 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "The researchers collected scans of the brain, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, to investigate the specific brain circuitry that is linked to subliminal instrumental conditioning. "The ventral striatum responded to subliminal cues and to visible outcomes in a manner that closely approximates our computational algorithm, expressing reward expected values and prediction errors," says Dr. Pessiglione. "We conclude that, even without conscious processing of contextual cues, our brain can learn their reward value and use them to provide a bias on decision making."

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Subliminal Learning Demonstrated In Human Brain

a new study published by Cell Press in the August 28 issue of the journal Neuron used sophisticated perceptual masking, computational modeling, and neuroimaging to show that instrumental learning can occur in the human brain without conscious processing of contextual cues.

Dr. Pessiglione and colleagues created visual cues from scrambled, novel, abstract symbols. Visual awareness was assessed by displaying two of the masked cues and asking subjects if they perceived any difference. "We reasoned that if subjects were unable to correctly perceive any difference between the masked cues, then they were also unable to build conscious representations of cue-outcome associations

subjects performed a subliminal conditioning task that employed the same masking procedure, but the cues were now paired with monetary outcomes

pairing rewards and punishments guided behavioral responses and even conditioned preferences for abstract cues

Tags: neuroscience, learning

Conservatives Claim "Liberal Media."

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:06:22 GMT

clipped by: citizenbfk
clipper's remarks: A) We do not have a liberal media; it's a corporate controlled media. The lack of coverage of the fine speeches of the war protest groups this week at the RNC, for example, shows the media bias.

There IS massive opposition the the war; the news just doesn't cover it.

Claiming "liberal media," is propaganda.

B)Though our American media does like to zoom in on the crotch of teenage girls who have sex that doesn't mean they are "liberal," but rather just a degenerate example of a decaying civilization that thinks this is "News."

In fact, Obama (a so-called, 'liberal,') was Very Clear: "Leave familes out of our politics, esp. the children of candidates."

Any parent knows that no matter what they do or say their kids might screw around or screw up. This IS the prevailing reaction of real people along with what Obama said.

The Republicans are playing this up deliberately.

it does show the flaw, though, of Palin's sex ed idea of teaching ONLY abstinence as sex ed.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Palin hubbub leads Republican delegates to target 'liberal media'

The GOP deployed its principal spokespeople, elected officials, delegates and cable television surrogates with one essential message: Mess with our gal, Sarah, or her pregnant 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, and we will mess with you.

Tags: palin, media

How out of touch is the mainstream media?

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:25:29 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: newsbusters.org

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift disclosed on the McLaughlin Group

that John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for VP was greeted by “literally laughter” in “very many newsrooms.”

ELEANOR CLIFT: This is not a serious choice. It makes it look like a made for TV movie. If the media reaction is anything, it's been literally laughter in many places across news-

JOHN McLAUGHLIN, TALKING OVER CLIFT: Where is that? See that?

CLIFT: In very, very many newsrooms.

MP3 clip

Clip Source: www.rasmussenreports.com

There have been significant changes in perception of John McCain in the two days of polling since he named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Since then, 49% of Republicans voice a Very Favorable opinion of McCain. That’s up six percentage points from 43% just before the announcement. Also, 64% of unaffiliated voters now give positive reviews to McCain, up ten points since naming his running mate.

There has been little change in perceptions of Obama since his Thursday night speech and the Palin announcement

Tags: msm, media, bias, obama, mccain, palin, election, politics