Conservatives: Media Bias Essay, Research Paper
Katha Pollitt’s Argument About Media Being Biased Against Liberals and Allan
Levite’s Argument That Media Is Biased Against Conservatives
In the nation Katha Pollitt argues in her article “Kissing & Telling”
that the media is against liberals, and or her views. Allan Levite in his
article for the National review, “Bias Basics,” Levite argues that the medial is
biased against conservatives. Both authors present arguments with deficiencies.
They both have motives to be biased. One of them has to be right, but using the
proof the two authors sight you could not tell which one. The two columnists
each write biased columns that do not prove their points well.
In Pollitt’s argument she says that the media ignores the real issue.
Which is a male harassing a female. She says that the media ignores the other
cases of more serious offenses dealing with the same subject. She sights two
other cases that she would have us believe are more commonplace than incredibly
stupid elementary school kids. Her first example is the case dealing with the
sixth grader who received death threats does not even clearly state what kind of
hate was involved. It could have been sexual harassment, or it could have been
because she carried Spam around on her forehead. She only names two cases as her
examples. So in her magical “evil people bash feminism land” her argument is
just as common as what she is complaining about, or maybe less common. No one is
trying to bash feminism. This was not planned out to happen. (I hope)
Also, kids in elementary school always are not thinking about getting
their secretaries to have sex with them for raises. Personally, I think kids are
stupid. Even I was a stupid kid. When I was in third grade a guy, Tommy, bit my
ear. Because he bit my ear I have not become accustomed to Sado Masochist gay
sex dealing around ear biting. Tommy has not been going around biting people’s
ears and getting turned on by this. He now cleans pools for a living. I doubt
either of us cared at the time. Although I remember some crying. People who pee
in their pants in grade school usually do not pee in their pants when they are
grown up to be heads of the country. We would know about it if they did. Many
children form weird attractions to doing many things when they are small. I used
to think Bon Jovi was the coolest band ever. Now I laugh at my obvious
immaturity, because I do not believe that anymore. Kids have no idea what the
hell they are doing they’re “dumb” and “cute.” (And getting more sexual activity
than me and those bastards can’t even multiply)
Even Pollitt justifies my argument of the kid does not know what the
hell he is doing. “De’ Andre’s whole family was famous, until they stopped
returning reporters’ calls after he punched and bit a teacher.” The kid probably
will not grow up, and go around biting and punching teachers.
Pollitt also tries to argue the point when she asks “And how can we
raise children to respect another’s limits at 13– and– 30 if we think it’s
cute when we do not.” She compares what the kids did to “sexual aggression and
violence.” This is a little bit strong comparison for a bunch of kids who
probably have wet their bed’s recently. They do not exactly have secretaries to
bribe with raises yet, or wives to beat. When I think of violence the first
thing that comes to my mind is tearing one button from a skirt. (Really) I do
not think these kids are anyway dealing with anything but their own ignorance.
Charge them with stupidity or immaturity. Come on, these kids are not even old
enough to laugh in health class everytime someone says the word “penis.”
Another completely bogus thing that Pollitt suggest is if John Leo, who
wrote the column on if he would have though it was so cute if the boys had
kissed other boys. Would the principal have thought that it was sexual
harassment and suspended them in the first place? I doubt it.
It would appear also that because of Pollitt’s past history she does
hold some anger towards people who mess with others when they are children. She
does not appear to be too much a centrist when it comes to punishment of kids
mistreating others. In fact, she probably holds some deep psychological grudge
against kids who annoy others. Maybe to get back at the ones who annoyed and
mistreated her she decided to write this column thinking that Johnathan and De’
Andre are just like the ones who angered her. This is the first reason for bias.
There is probably a really good reason why this article is in a magazine that is
so left winged it is probably communist.
Levite’s using the most incredibly dense, and stupid idea I have seen in
quite a while. To decide whether the media is liberally or conservatively biased
he uses a keyword search. Putting words into a keyword search is by no stretch
of the imagination reliable for anything. Example: If I type “free porn” into
the Internet search, Infoseek??? I get some crap against child pornography, some
Palmala Anderson non porn stuff, some crap on pay me some money “free” service,
and actually only one real “Free Porn” site. Keyword searches take two words and
find them anywhere in the document. If I said, “I can see out over the
airplane’s wing and on the right side I see a bird,” according to his search I
am a pinko commie liberal bastard. A better example of keyword searches: I put
the words ultra left and right wings into the searches. Right wing gives me
information on cults. Left wing gives me information on flying. Consider Waco,
and Montana cults and militias. That was front page news every day, and I do not
seem to know of any left wing cults. Probably because using a true Democrat a
left wing cult cannot exist unless it happens to be a separate country. (See
Aaron Burr) The fact that Levite did not actually check to see what ever the
articles are on, or he just neglected to mention what they were about. If he did
not mention them, might it be because it might hurt his argument so he left that
subject out? If he did not even check the articles, why? Does he have an actual
life? Or do his statistics prove what he wants to say so he decides why go any
further?
I also wonder how he decided upon what terms were considered offensive
to each party. Some terms considered to describe the right wing consist of
everything from white supremacist rich capitalist to Nazi. Many of the
psychotically dangerous right wing people I know skip the talk of “ultra
liberal” and “liberal attack,” and go straight to “you pinko commie bastard” or
the ever popular and multi-useful derogatory comment, “fag.” As other essay’s
discussed in class columnist can use the terminology more often than others, but
there is still the same amount of columns biased on both sides. This is also
effected by other factors, such as editors who value comic strips more than
columnist etc.
The methods used by Levite are not sufficient proof of the claim he does
so well to argue in the first paragraph. He uses data that is based on the
actual amount of reporters and editors who are liberal and conservative from the
Los Angeles Times, and The Media Elite. If he would have used more data like the
ones he used in the first paragraph then there would be no way to actually argue
his entire essay. The first paragraph of the essay goes to prove his point
beautifully. Damn shame the other three pages are completely useless because of
the data he uses. (unless you run out of toilet paper) Quite possibly Levite’s
data could be read by a left wing supporting columnist and turned around in his
face with a look into the actual articles Levite uses in his search.
If you plan on showing how something such as the media is biased then
the one collecting the research should not be biased in the first place. Biased
researchers look for what they are trying to prove instead of the whole truth,
and might disregard something that does not prove their point. My suggestion is
to get someone who hates both sides and will try to ruin them both.