I was just talking about this with someone a few days ago. If anyone reading this has read the book "Bias", it explains completely the reason for much of the obvious slants in the news. I forget the author of the book, but he was in fact an openly liberal journalist / reporter, but stated that he adheared to his oath as a journalist to present the facts, and not include opinion. The book is fairly old now (almost 10 years old), but it speaks volumes about what has apparently become even more quite obvious in recent years.

The book goes on to explain that most journalists are in fact liberal, but they don't actually BELIEVE that they are biased. So much in fact that they would take a lie detector test and actually pass. The reason given makes quite a bit of sense which I will hopefully explain here. Every person has their own sense of 'reality'. We each have views and opinions and aspects on life which are based around our experiences and largely, our upbringing in life, either in spite of, or because of. For most of these journalists who we pin as liberal, their views are often quite left leaning. The odd thing however is that their perception of what is "reality" or "normal" is actually to the LEFT of the proverbial political mid-point. When they read a news article or report on a story, their basis for neutrality STARTS on the left. Therefore to the true moderate, any news article that (in the reporters opinion) has a slight left leaning connotation, would be COMPLETELY liberally biased to absurd proportions, but anything to the right of the reporters perception, would likely ACTUALLY be neutral at best. Anything that might seem even remotely pro conservative would be abhorantly "radical" in their opinion.

It's like the joke about the old man driving down the highway... anyone going slower than him is an idiot, and anyone going faster than him is insane.

The most obvious of this kind of bias that they're inherently oblivious to is the use of inflection, body language, and adjectives that they throw into reporting. An exaggerated example might be:

"Radical Republicans violently protested the peaceful Pro-Choice group outside of the community supportive ACORN office. Right-wing activist George Bush told former President Clinton that no weapons of mass destruction were found at the location".

The comment would obviously be totally ridiuclous to the true moderate or conservative, but totally normal to someone who THINKS they are unbiased.

This has become the ROOT of the problem associated with all of these news stations. ABC, NBC, and CBS, as well as MSNBC and to a slightly lesser extent, CNN... all are predominantly liberal. Unlike Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC actually LOSE money. Their other channels and programing actually subsidize their cable news networks, while Fox News' cable network channel actually rakes in significant income. To the directors and programming directors of these shows, they are oblivious to this "reality". They simply DO NOT understand why their ratings have fallen. So much in fact that they actually believe that by bringing a "conservative" onto their channel that it would be like the Taliban hiring Pat Robertson to perform their terrorist video. The point being that they already believe that they actually ARE unbiased and that by straying from this perceived neutrality, they would be abandoning their journalistic oath. Little do they realize that they've actually already abandoned it...

Fox News of course certainly leans right... they are quite frankly the only channel that provides a conservative view-point. The same kind of logic could also be said for the other side. There might be inflections and improper adjective use in Fox News reports that many of us might be relatively oblivious to... but the fact remains that Fox News has been number 1 for the past 6-7 years, and ABC, CBS, and NBC continue to fail.

It's really quite sad though about CNN. I was a CNN follower for a long time. Every time I would travel overseas, whether it be Europe, Egypt, Thailand, etc... I always had access to CNN in the hotel room. Even during the days preceeding 9/11 and the months that followed, I tuned in to CNN.

Crossfire was cancelled because the show stunk.  Crossfire was a great show when Buchanan was on it.  When he left it began to tank.  Carville was good, but Begala and Carlson were horrible.  You can argue whether Stewart was right or not, but he didn't cause the downfall of the show or CNN.  It was already too late by then.  Fox was already #1 before the interview right?  At the very least the CNN downfall was already there long before Stewart.

I think Klein was just using some of that interview's fame as a scape goat and way to promote his new branding.  A branding that has obviously failed.

It's easy to say the show "sucked", it's also easy to say that the way out of this financial mess is to "raise taxes", but that still totally ignores the underlying cause of the problem.

For me, I watched CNN for YEARS... I remember watching the first gulf war on CNN, and continued to watch it well after 9/11...

I distinctly remember eventually going to Fox News simply because they were providing more of the news that I was looking for. It was definitely gradual, but I was certainly aware of it. The same thing could be said for my change from going to MSN Money to MarketWatch. I used to always run quotes and read financial news from MSN Money, but now, MarketWatch ( http://www.MarketWatch.com ) is the superior financial news center. Co-incidentally, they are owned by the Wall Street Journal Company which is also owned by NewsCorp, which also happens to own Fox News. They obviously know something that the other guys don't know... you tell me... 

there is a Journalist's Oath?

Todd, I'm glad to see you agree with me that Jon Stewart didn't take down CNN.

TLM, I do agree with you. I think it's definitely more for the reasons I explained above. CNN is but one of several casualties from the same affliction. You get a gold star. However, I will say that Stewart definitely RULED that day. I've never seen any show or news debate show, ever, that was more controlled by the guest than the host. He had the ability to maintain his cool throughout the entire inteview while at the same time absolutely enraging the two hosts... although more so the Republican guy.

I would say that Jon Stewart definitely destroyed Crossfire. How much longer did the show last after that one aired?

"In their countersuit, pageant organizers said Prejean had verbally promised to pay them back the $5,200, the New York Post reported." Baltimore Sun

as they say, "not worth the paper it's not written on" but if true is she a woman of her word?

oops how'd that happen

I wonder what an interview of Prejean would be like with Stewart as the host???

I think he'd be a gentleman worthy of his alma mater

Todd and TLM, you both make some good points but I remain unconvinced.  At the time of Stewart's apearance Fox News was #1 but CNN was still a very respectable #2.  It is now a distant fourth in ratings.

If Crossfire stunk it would have been easy enough to find new hosts.  Imagine if CNN had gotten creative and lured Glenn Beck or even Rush Limbaugh to go head to head with Al Franken every night (all popular radio talk show hosts at the time).  The result would have been a ratings bonanza.  Instead they cancelled the show. 

Crossfire was CNN's flagship program.  They had poured millions into promoting the show, making it the most recognizable, respected and longest-running debate show on cable news television.  After Stewart's appearance, Klein abruptly and inexplicably removed it from the air, while creditng Stewart.  This might have won kudos from the liberal elites, but it lost CNN viewers - millions of them.

But, yes, obviously there were many factors that led to Fox's rise to prominence and CNN's demise.  I just think Stewart's Crossfire appearance was one of the primary ones.

Matt, by your own comments, they reflect what I am trying to say. Suggesting that Stewart's trashing of Crossfire was the CAUSE of the demise of CNN is really saying that the car hitting the wall is what killed the pedestrian. 

The big point is missed... why was the car running into a wall to begin with, and how fast were they going?

You said "Glen Beck or Rush" could have been lured to CNN... and that's really the point here... it's not that Stewart was able to destroy CNN, but the fact that CNN resisted supporting any kind of Conservative viewership (for all of the reasons I mentioned above in my long response). 

Let me just say I'm a huge fan of Todd's analogies.  I'm not that big of a fan for the fact that if you don't type the enter the letters text right your entire comment disappears.   

I also enjoyed the "car running into a wall" bit.

TLM, you've been CAPTCHA'd

Yeah, I meant to say "Driver" instead of "pedestrian"...