Warp wrote:
> Carlo C. <nomail@nomail> wrote:
>> The Best are the nations of Northern Europe and Scandinavian countries: Iceland,
>> Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden (top five worldwide).
> 
>   Note that even though there's no governmental pressure on what the press
> can publish, there may still be (and actually *is*) cultural and sociological
> pressure on what kind of things the press will allow itself to publish.
> Self-censorship in certain subjects is quite common.
> 
>   Also "free press" in no way implies that the press is unbiased. While some
> very small newspapers may be more willing to publish even more "taboo" points
> of view, it's rather common that the big ones tend to be rather biased on
> how they approach certain "taboo" subjects. In extreme cases the press at
> large may engage in open witch-hunting against certain movements or even
> individuals (it *has* happened, even here).

Happens in the U.S. all the time.  Of the major media institutions 
(print and media), the majority of them are well to the left of the 
American populace (in polls taken of journalists, they tend to vote for 
one party over 80% of the time, whereas the general populace, as whole, 
favors both parties evenly).

They routinely repeat, without even a token effort at corroboration, the 
statements issued by one of our two major political parties, and in so 
doing have reported things which are objectively false.  They have 
assisted the character assassination of opponents of that major party, 
and of opponents of that party's positions on just about any topic you 
can name.

It is no secret that they definitely took sides in our most recent 
presidential election, and given how close the election was, had a 
decisive effect.

On April the 15th, there were literally thousands of demonstrations in 
the U.S. against the massive taxing and spending agenda of the current 
administration.  The demonstrations were run by the demonstrators 
themselves with no significant overall organization (what we call a 
"grass-roots" movement).  With one exception, the major media houses did 
their best to ignore the demonstrations (which were weeks in the 
planning) up until the day of the demonstrations, and then portrayed the 
demonstrators as a minor extremists fringe, misrepresented their views, 
and dismissed them as puppets of the one major television news outlet 
that does not share the other news outlets' views.  On-location coverage 
was notoriously biased.  Demonstrators interviewed on-camera were 
frequently not allowed to speak as much as a complete sentence without 
interruption by the reporter, whereas in coverage of demonstrations on 
the other end of the spectrum, demonstrators are essentially handed the 
microphone.

The one major media format that runs counter to this picture is talk 
radio.  The talk radio audience is, as a rule, not interested in the 
viewpoints that predominate in print and television, and therefore only 
those shows which oppose those views can make a profit (the major 
exception is subsidized by the government); the most recent major effort 
to make talk radio more like the other news media resulted in massive 
debt and (IIRC) bankruptcy.

It goes without saying that talk radio is routinely demonized by the 
print and television media.

Regards,
John

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