I get the feeling I'm being considered an evil Republican after my last rant. Let me tell you this, Right now Republicans are REALLY on my nerves. They ran on a ticket of smaller government yet under Bush government has increased more (percentage wise) than any other period in American history. Also, this no child left behind thing? Isn't working. You can't cut funding to underperforming schools and then all of a sudden it gets better. It does NOT work that way. Don't get me wrong on this either... public schools are a MESS. I don't even think the system is repairable.

I used to work for a company that was the official Apple k-12 Sales Team that served all of the South East excluding Florida. It was our business to know how much each school system spent per student and how much of that went to technology. It was an important part of our sales forecasting. Williamson County schools in Tennessee and Cobb County schools were the top two at the time. Cobb spent more than Williamson County did. Way more. Even though Tennessee itself was ranked near the bottom as worst states for Education Williamson County by itself was rated highly. If not for Williamson TN would have ranked dead last I'm sure. Cobb county was one of the worst but spent more money than Williamson... And don't get me started on Atlanta City Schools...

So cutting the funding doesn't do JACK. And throwing more money at them does nothing but waste money. I covered seven states total across the southeast so I can't really speak for the other 47 states but this is what I saw. I'm not going to attempt to even think of a way to fix education. It is beyond my comprehension. All I know is that it is severely broken and neither party, Republican or Democratic... has a plan to fix it.

This kind of reminds me of something else as well. Something I've noticed a few friends of mine saying off the cuff. When did Fox news become a republican propaganda channel? I didn't know this but the Democrats have refused to have anything to do as far as interviews, one on ones, or any kind of press related event with Fox News. I also know that there have been several attempts to revive the so called "Fairness Doctrine" in congress by key democratic leaders. For those of you that don't know the Fairness Doctrine (it's been called several names by now) is a law that stipulates that democratic/liberal viewpoints should have equal time. It's primarily aimed at Talk Radio (this is according to talk radio hosts). I don't know about all that but it seems odd an entire political party would blackball an entire news channel while at the same time demanding fair time on the news talk radio shows.

Wasn't there an Air America? It failed miserably from what I understand. So does this mean that since they aren't viable through normal market conditions they have to be supported by law? That's troubling to say the least. I also found this study.

This is more troubling. There have been studies on the liberal bias of the media before. But honestly they were always performed by the Heritage Foundation and the Kato Institue, Republican and Libertarian foundations respectively. I've always found those studies suspect. But this latest study is from Harvard and their Project for Excellence in Journalism. Here is what they watched, read, and listened to..

NY Times every day

Code 2 out of these 4 every day
Washington Post
Los Angeles Times
USA Today
Wall Street Journal

Code 2 out of these 4 every day
The Boston Globe
Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Austin American-Statesman
Albuquerque Journal

Code 2 out of these 4 every day
The Sun Chronicle (Boston, MA)
Star Beacon (Ashtabula, Ohio)
The Chattanooga Times Free Press
The Bakersfield Californian

Web sites (Five in all, Mon-Fri)

CNN.com
Yahoo News
MSNBC.com
Google News
AOL News

Network TV (Seven in all, Mon-Fri)

Morning shows
ABC – Good Morning America
CBS – Early Show
NBC - Today Evening news
ABC – World News Tonight
CBS – CBS Evening News
NBC – NBC Nightly News
PBS – Newshour with Jim Lehrer

Cable TV (Fifteen in all, Mon-Fri)

Daytime code 2 out of 3 every day*
CNN
Fox News
MSNBC *From Jan. 1 to March 16 coded from 1-1:30 p.m. EST; from March 19 on, coded from 2-2:30 p.m. EST

Nighttime CNN – code 3 out of the 4 every day
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Situation Room (7 pm)
Paula Zahn Now
Anderson Cooper 360

Nighttime Fox News – code 3 out of the 4 every day
Special Report w/ Brit Hume
Fox Report w/ Shepard Smith
O’Reilly Factor
Hannity & Colmes

Nighttime MSNBC – code 2 out of the 4 every day
Tucker (6 pm)
Hardball (7 pm)
Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann
Scarborough Country

Radio (Eight in all, Mon-Fri)

Headlines every day
ABC Radio headlines at 9am and 5pm
CBS Radio headlines at 9am and 5pm
NPR Morning Edition every day

Talk Radio
Rush Limbaugh every day

1 out of 2 additional conservatives each day
Sean Hannity
Michael Savage

1 out of 2 liberals each day
Ed Schultz
Randi Rhodes.


I really do suggest everyone go read this study for yourself and draw your own conclusions. But what it found is that not only MORE coverage is given to Democratic, tone of coverage on Dems VS. Republicans... Dems get FAR more positive coverage. And Republicans get FAR more Negative coverage.

For instance, MSNBC is 47.2 Positive towards Dems, 34.1 Neutral and 18.7 Neagative.
The numbers for Republicans? 37.8 Positive 32.7 Neutral and 29.6 Negative.

PBS and NPR had the most neutral out of all news and radio outlets. Personally I listen to NPR like it's crack.


What's REALLY scary are the newspapers. On average here are the stats.
Democrats 58.8 Positive 11.3 Negative
Republicans 26.4 Positive 39.6 Negative.

That's almost a 40 point difference there...
And to quote directly from the study...

"Newspapers also stood out for initiating more campaign coverage on their own. Nearly half of all front page stories were triggered by newsroom initiative rather than reacting to what the candidate or others said or did (46%). That is substantially higher than the 28% in the media generally in the sample. A little more than a third of stories were triggered by the candidates and their campaigns (37%), compared with 46% generally."

Newspapers instead of reporting the news are going out and creating it? I mean... Yes I understand investigative journalism and all that but with those Tonal ratings on their coverage it starts to paint a picture of dirt digging.

Alright... I'll quit ranting today. I am not a Republican, nor am I a Democrat. I don't know what I am anymore. It's not your parent's Democratic party anymore. It sure as hell isn't their Republican party anymore either. If I may plead one thing of my friends on LJ. I've noticed I lost a friend after my last post. I HOPE it isn't because I stated my opinions on anything. I mean... that's one thing I encourage with everyone... is debate. You can disagree with someone and still respect their position.

Just because someone believes in something different than you... Well... All I'm saying is if you choose to break a friendship because of that... Isn't that just being prejudice in the end?

Freedom of Speech is the greatest gift we have after all.