Political News

News comes in many different forms. From newspapers, to the internet, radio to television and even news magazines. Each type of news outlet comes with their own ways of interpreting the news, whether they lean to the left side of the political spectrum, or to the far right. Some also fall in the middle and at all different points on the spectrum. When it comes to the different ways in which a specific news outlet portrays a political news story there are four ways in which political journalism is viewed. These views include; news as “objective”, liberal bias, conservative bias, and economic or institutional bias. All news outlets use at least one of these four views of journalism. This paper will look at the national news corporation, MSNBC and how it portrays a fairly liberal bias when it comes to political journalism. I will provide three examples of how MSNBC is a liberally biased news source and how their stories represent the views of the outlet they are produced in.
When a news station is liberally biased, it means that the mainstream media is dominated by liberal political bias. Most journalists identify themselves as liberal or democratic. In reference to this definition, the MSNBC website just in one day contains many stories that emphasize how liberal the reporters are and the news station in general.
In an article posted on the MSNBC website, healthcare is discussed. The article titled, “Health Insurance industry report draws fire: White House, allies attack claim that health bill would add hefty new costs” discusses how the insurance companies are not being very easy to deal with in regards to the healthcare overhaul.
The industry put out a report Monday concluding that the Senate's health care legislation would drive up costs to consumers, delivering a dire message at a crucial point in the debate and potentially threatening President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
This opinion is clearly not in favor of our democratic president because it goes against he President’s health care reform and implies that the president needs to reform his own heath care plan in order to win approval by the majority of the American people. MSNBC aims to give information on the critical things the Republican Party is saying about President Obama and his plans, and then gives solid evidence to refute these claims by the republicans. Directly after the previously stated quote, MSNBC shows their liberal bias by sharing what the White House democrats said in response:
The White House and congressional Democrats dismissed the late-in-coming message as a "hatchet job." But it put them and their allies on the defensive a day ahead of a pivotal vote in the Senate Finance Committee on sweeping legislation that aims to achieve Obama's goals of extending coverage to the uninsured and curtailing spiraling medical costs.
This quote clearly depicts the view of MSNBC in that it defends the president and his efforts to pass the health care plan that he has put forward.
The remainder of this article continues to support the president and his health care reform. Although it does give both sides of the issue, because this media outlet is liberally biased, it is understandable that an article on health care would be more in support of the democratic president, rather than defending the opposing side.
Another article on the MSNBC website is about the recent Gay Rights march on the White House. This article, titled, “Frank: D.C. Gay Rights march misses mark: Congressman urges gay rights advocates to follow NRA playbook and lobby”. In this article the first openly gay member of Congress, Barney Frank, discusses the march and how instead of marching, gay rights activists should lobby their elected officials instead. To the Associated Press, Frank said that he considered such demonstrations to be “an emotional release that does little to pressure congress”. Even though Frank does not agree that this act of protest is an effective form to persuade congress, the article is clearly liberally biased because it is discussing gay rights which are strong liberal issues. If this news source had a conservative bias, then gay rights would either not be discussed, or discussed in a negative way. Barney Frank is not bashing gay rights activists with his comments, he is simply saying that there are better ways to go about getting the word out, and there are certainly better ways of being heard by lobbyists and politicians.
The third and final article from MSNBC that we will look at is about President Obama and his economic agenda. This article, titled “Obama Agenda: Economy” discusses how republican officials have been criticizing Obama saying that his economic plan for getting the country out of this recession is not working, and that the President needs to give more tax cuts. The main arguments of the article, though, are once again in favor of the democratic president and his decisions. The article discusses a letter that White House economic advisor Larry Summers wrote to the House Republican Leader, John Boehner. In this letter Summers’ is responding to complaints to the President by Boehner and other House Republicans on the state of the economy. These Republican’s complained that, “the administration was having no impact on unemployment and recommended a series of tax breaks to invigorate the economy”. In response, Summers said that,
The $787 billion stimulus package that Congress passed at Obama's urging contained a mix of spending and tax relief that helped avert a worse economic downturn. He said that while unemployment now stands at 9.8 percent, the pace of job losses is decreasing from an average of 691,000 jobs per month in the first quarter of this year to a 256,000 monthly average in the third quarter.
Clearly Summers is in defense of his democratic party and is backing the President in his response to the top House Republican’s complaints.
This article later says that Summers blamed the past republican presidents for the current economic crisis. “The second half of Summers's letter was devoted to arguing that Republican presidents are to blame for deepening the nation's deficits with "fiscal irresponsibility.” This statement, without a doubt, shows a liberal bias when it comes to the economic situation, and backs the President up when arguing against critical republicans.
Though we only looked at one news source to get a sense of how the news media uses journalistic views to portray politics, it is clear that just through this one form of news how an outlet will slant their information towards a specific political agenda. If you look at other news sources you can see the same trends in regards to how they portray politics. It is known that Fox News has a conservative bias, and some news outlets such as Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood use an economic or institutional bias with their information. MSNBC is obviously leans more to the left side of the political spectrum with its news, and this can be seen in many different articles that it posts on their website. Discussion of gay rights, health care, and the state of the economy are just grazing the surface of topics MSNBC covers with their liberal bias.
Some may say news outlets using any of the journalistic views previously mentioned is a bad thing. However, whether you are a democrat or republican, you are moderate or like hearing outrageous news, the news source you choose to receive your political information from depends on what party or lack of party you associate with. If you do not agree with a certain issue that a news source is defending, you will choose a news source that sees politics the way you do. There is nothing wrong with news outlets having biases; it just makes American’s more selective when deciding what source to get their information from.


Works Cited:

MSNBC. (2009). Frank: D.C. Gay Rights march misses mark: Congressman urges gay rights advocates to follow NRA playbook and lobby. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33252696/ns/politics-capitol_hill.

MSNBC. (2009). Health Insurance industry report draws fire: White House, allies attack claim that health bill would add hefty new costs. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33279989/ns/politics-health_care_reform.

MSNBC. (2009). Obama Agenda: Economy. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/10/13/2096905.aspx.