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From: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Media Bias
Message-ID: <2291@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Oct-86 05:08:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: psuvax1.2291
Posted: Wed Oct  1 05:08:12 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Oct-86 06:58:33 EDT
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Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ.
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> There has been a lot of discussion as to whether the Media
> in the USA is biased toward the right or the left.  It is
> my contention that there is a bias.  One form this bias takes
> is emphasizing abuses of the left while ignoring abuses of the
> right.  I know that it is bad form to use facts to back up a
> contention (:-)) but ...
> 
A table follows, showing that the opressed persons from Soviet Union
and Poland are mentioned frequently, while the opressed persons from
'friendly' countries are hardly ever mentioned.

> Joe Hingston
> HASA - S Division

To some extend this may be explained by the natural focus of the 
media on super-power relationship with USSR: because of its size
and significance in the world, USSR is covered much better than,
say, Indonesia (or Bulgaria).    

However, the bias is larger than that.  The slouther in Guatemala
is covered very sparsely.  Recently, NYT magazine had a cover story
on Miss Bhutto.  The story was surprizingly warm toward the current 
dictator Zia, and his full page portrait was smashing: Zia usually
looks like a drill officer he is, but on NYT picture we have seen
a gentle golf player in arty apparel.

I keep another NYT with the cover page annoucing:

  THE STAR WAR SPINOFF:  Star wars is no longer in a mere phase
			 of debating point.  For better or worse,
			 the controversial SDI is already yielding
			 new technologies that seem destined to
			 change the world.

WOW!  I started to read what those technologies are.

Number one: rail gun, a way of accelerating projectiles to phantastic
	    speed (with the use of a dedicated power station).
	    May be used to defend nuclear power plants against Soviet
	    forces of all kinds.  Although interesting, hardly a spinoff
	    (it is merely a controversial proposal of a weapon).
Number two: developement of circuits based not on silicon, but on gallium
	    arsenide (they should be much faster).  Nice, but sounds
	    familiar.  Of course, a new source of money for R&D may
	    be useful here, but this technology should be able to 
	    develope with or without SDI.
Number three: optical switches.  Same as above.  Military was interested
	    in super-fast computing anyway, and so should be DoA (whether
	    prediction) and many others.
Number four: software development.  Computer experts working for SDI 
	    projects are streamlining problem-solving procedures.  One
	    of their approaches (HERE! HERE! THERE GOES A BIG ONE!) is
	    "to break up a complex problem into many small elements that
	    can solved simultaneously and than be rapidly reassembled
	    to yield the required result."  My, my.  Parallel computing
	    was invented a while ago.
Number five: super-laser Nova, completed last year in Livermore.  It
	    may be a big step toward controlled fussion.  Here the role
	    of SDI money rescued a project initially financed by Dept.
	    of Energy.

In general, not a single non-military spinoff was presented.  As written
in the article, "SDI funds have played an important role not [only] in
fostering new projects, but rescuing or reviving old ones."

In the case of super-laser, Dept. of Energy funded the huge project,
but before if was finished "financing for many fussion experiments has
dwindled almost to the vanishing point".  What happens is that 
Administration chops the scientific budgets madly because of fiscal
consideration.  The only source of new money for science is in DoD,
and within DoD it will be mostly SDI.  What the article describes (if
read cynically) is not a process of creating spinoffs, but spin-ins:
research areas of independent merits, spinned-in to the fabric of SDI.
In the process, scientist are taken as hostages: their projects, before
funded because of their independent merits, now can be funded either as
a part of SDI, or not at all (a quote of an engineer: "Fussion may be
our salvation, and Nova may be the route to fussion.  If Star Wars keep
the Nova alive, it's all to the good").  

I do not want to quote too much.  The point is that the story was an
exelant example of NYT bias: enough of objective details that an 
intelligent reader will not feel insulted, and may even gain a new
insight.  On the other hand, the big title and the proportions (a lot
of space devoted to positive images, negatives hidden in the chopped 
ending) will mislead the general public (i.e the majority who votes, 
and in the case of affluent readers, who finances the political process).

Sorry, the last quote.  Same issue of NYT Magazine, a letter to Editor:

" To a seasoned Kremlinologist, Mr. Salisbury's unprecedented access
  to a number of high-level Soviet officials close to Gorbachev would
  seem to be a part of a carefully arranged scenario arranged by Dobrynin,
  closest foreign policy adviser and expert on American politics and
  psychology".

Without a doubt, during his many years in Washington, Dobrynin learned 
something from American media, Needless to say, the scientific reporter 
of NYT who prepared propaganda piece prepared above had lavish access 
to military officials involved in funding SDI research.

Piotr Berman