The Bubble Genius Bob & Chez Show 12/06/12

Haven’t listened yet Bob but, I’m planning to later today. I’m hoping that you guys covered my least favorite show, next to Scarborough’s which is the Cycle. I can’t stand S.E. Cupp and I’m still livid that Phil Griffin put this wingnut moron on the air. I don’t like any Conservatives, truth be told because I haven’t seen one yet who doesn’t just regurgitate rightwing, bullshit, talking points. What Griffin needs to know is that if Liberals wanted to watch Conservatives, we’d just turn on fox!

Chez has a streak of college-kid contrarianism, and is sometimes a bit intellectually incoherent. Like when he prefixes his impending use of a logical fallacy with “I know this is the Argumentum ad populum fallacy, BUT…” then proceeds to use it anyway.

It’s really no different than any one of the cable news pundits who on a daily basis preface statements they know aren’t true with “I’m not saying x,y and z, BUT…” before saying x,y and z.

Okay this is one of the reasons I love this podcast. The main reason I went to grad school was because I like intellectual sparing matches. Yes there are problems with both arguments. Bob’s a little too rigid in his premises and definitions, and Chez’s structure could be a bit better. But both Bob and Chez present valid, coherent thought-provoking arguments about the nature of bias in the media. They do so in an intellectually honest fashion with each person giving the other due credit, and treating the other’s argument seriously and respectfully. There aren’t any nasty cheap shots just to score points which distract from the discussion. It’s obvious the goal is to gain a greater understanding about the world through solid, honest debate.

I’d much rather you guys spend an entire podcast fleshing out one issue, really pushing the arguments in an intellectually, but spirited fashion then blather on about several topics of the day just because you feel you should especially if there isn’t as much passion in it. Good job guys. Keep it up!

Good debate, guys. Enjoyed listening to it. You both made some really good points. To the extent I had to take sides here, I think I ended up agreeing with Chez more than I agreed with Bob; I think Chez’s “benefit-of-the-doubt” argument was the most persuasive. I posted about this last week, using my “Obama tried to force veterans to pay for their own war injuries” example. Most of us, when we read a statement like that, say “that can’t be true,” for either or both of two reasons: (1) It just sounds ridiculous and unreasonable, because no President would want to do that; and/or (2) we give Obama the benefit of the doubt that he’s not that stupid, mean, cruel, or anti-veteran. But either way, hearing something like that, saying to yourself, “That’s got to be bullshit,” looking it up and finding out what really happened (someone suggested having private insurance cover all medical needs for vets instead of splitting service and non-service treatment between the V.A. and private carrier), could be a manifestation of pro-Obama bias. We know he wouldn’t do that, so we choose not to believe it and then prove ourselves right.

As I pointed out, I don’t think the issue is whether bias exists or not, whether a TV network, its personnel, its content, etc. are biased or not; yes/no questions and binary formulations are seldom helpful. I also think it is very different to say that “MSNBC is biased” than to say that “there is bias at MSNBC.” A TV network can’t really be biased; only people can be biased, and every living person has biases. You guys talked about “pro-conflict bias,” and “pro-reality bias.” There are biases toward believing that things are generally OK, and there are biases toward believing that everything sucks and the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Everyone has biases.

My point, I think, is that whether bias exists or not is not the point. It’s best to avoid binary formulations. What’s important is what the biases are, and what effect they have on the network’s content and coverage of the news. Whether, and to what extent, the biases are insidious, subversive, undermining, and ultimately enough to make the coverage untrustworthy. And, as you guys pointed out, whether the biases are just present in the people talking on the air, just naturally part of their individual personalities and worldviews [as much as I hate that word], or whether the biases are directed and required, put into the content consciously and deliberately by those in charge.

Maybe that last bit is the key. Maybe the difference between MSNBC and Fox is this: that the former has a bunch of liberals on TV talking about the news, and the latter has a bunch of actors on TV performing an improv act.

It’s not so much that Fox hosts are being told what to say; improvisational theatre doesn’t have a script. What it has is a set of background conditions, characters, scenarios, etc. that the actors play out on stage, improvising the dialogue and narrative within the confines of the background scenario. Ultimately, I think that’s the difference. Fox’s programming, content and presentation is an improv act, where MSNBC’s is not.

This, unfortunately, is what the Right (i.e., the GOP and its fans) has accomplished over the last 40 years, since Nixon and his acolytes started whining about “liberal media bias.” They spent 20 years doing that, then they created right-wing talk radio and Fox, disingenuously calling themselves a “fair and balanced” alternative to the “biased” “liberal” media. 20 years after that, they’re at the point where everything they present to the public is deeply paranoid, shrieking, hair-on-fire, psychotic, seething, white-hot hatred of Democrats, “liberals,” and whoever else they’re being ordered to hate this week. As a result, the mere absence of that automatic, knee-jerk, vicious, spiteful, schizophrenic animosity toward the President and anything associated with his party and his supporters could be considered “pro-Obama bias.”