MediaBite?

Found a link to this on the portal. http://www.mediabite.org

Is MediaBite a credible media watchdog or is its content dictated by its own (left-wing) agenda? Just out of boredom I searched for "Lisbon Treaty" on that site. The only relevant stuff I found was a page of angry letters by the site's owners criticizing not only the media but, it would seem, the Yes side itself and even Libertas. Even Sarah Carey's story about Sunday Times anti-Lisbon bias receives no attention itself but is used as a platform to attack the Irish Times.

So a big deal is made about Irish Times and to a lesser extent Irish Independent bias while nothing is said about the much clearer and more blatant anti-Lisbon bias of the Murdoch media empire in Ireland, and the other Irish print media.

Is the site serious about impartial reporting at all?

Well, I would take it on its merits as I find it i.e. a site with a left-wing agenda to expose right wing bias. There are some interesting interviews on the site, which I think it quite young. There are plenty of sites the other kind, if balance is an issue and the mass media is generally funded by big money and well able to look out for itself.

There was a thread here I think about the Sarah Carey article, and it was a right old barney on precisely the things you raise.

evercloserunion wrote:

Is the site serious about impartial reporting at all?

That comment is so ironic I don't know where to start....

Probably the best analysis of the banking bailout was done by mediabite last year, through an analysis of the filters and strictures of the mainstream corporate and state media.
http://www.mediabite.org/article_The-Media-and-the-Banking-Bailout_679566551.html

Their two parter on how climate change is discussed in the Irish media was also interesting.
http://www.mediabite.org/article_The-Climate-Change--Debate----Part-1_538973765.html

Mediabite is like an Irish version of Medialens.
http://www.medialens.org/

They are media monitoring sites. Of course they take a political position. But papers and media are influenced by advertisers, the government, or owned by billionaires. Mediabite's analysis can be quite enlightening whatever your position on the political spectrum.

Meanwhile the monitoring process is based upon the 'propaganda model' of the media within a capitalist democracy (note PR was known as propaganda up to (I think) the 30s). Whichi s not a biased model according to one's political position. It is mainly based upon a market and power analysis of the media system and inherent biases stemming from this.
It's as biased as a market analysis of the car industry.

As regards the focus on the 'liberal' press. Well this should be pretty clear when you think about it, the Murdoch press, or billionaire owned press is more biased, but the bias of the liberal press is still clear (but obfuscated) and is often worse. (the power of support from the pro-war left or humanitarian imperialists for instance)
Medialens makes the point more clearly below.

http://www.medialens.org/faq/#whatis

http://www.medialens.org/faq/#objective

http://www.medialens.org/faq/#fundamental
We hope that this website will help to turn bystanders into compassionate
actors. As historian Howard Zinn has written:
"Society has varying and conflicting interests; what is called
objectivity is the disguise of one of these interests - that of neutrality.
But neutrality is a fiction in an unneutral world. There are victims,
there are executioners, and there are bystanders... and the 'objectivity'
of the bystander calls for inaction while other heads fall."

http://www.medialens.org/about/overview_of_the_propaganda_model.php

http://www.medialens.org/about/
We did not expect the Soviet Communist Party's newspaper Pravda to tell the truth about the Communist
Party, why should we expect the corporate press to tell the truth about
corporate power?

Well why do we need another Indymedia? Isn't one enough?

But fair enough if MB is actually just another left-wing news source. It would do better to be a bit more honest about it though.

Does anyone know of any real media watchdogs?

evercloserunion wrote:

Well why do we need another Indymedia? Isn't one enough?

It's not an indymedia.

evercloserunion wrote:

But fair enough if MB is actually just another left-wing news source. It would do better to be a bit more honest about it though.

Does anyone know of any real media watchdogs?

Real media watchdogs? Being 'honest' about being 'just another left-wing news source.'? Are you even listening? The analysis is not left-wing (sure the people involved are). It stems from a model which is impartial and is not dependent on either left or right. Namely, the propaganda model.

http://www.medialens.org/about/overview_of_the_propaganda_model.php


evercloserunion, could you describe how a 'real' media watchdog would operate?

evercloserunion wrote:

Well why do we need another Indymedia? Isn't one enough?

But fair enough if MB is actually just another left-wing news source. It would do better to be a bit more honest about it though.

Does anyone know of any real media watchdogs?

Pax's reply explained how Mediabite monitors and analyses news reporting. That is a completely different role to acting as a news source. In any event, as you are concerned about balance, I would have thought you would welcome the addition of another left wing news source or news analysis site: the media are overwhelmingly dominated by privately owned liberal or right wing "organs". Do you think there should only be one right wing news site and the rest closed down?

Quote :

Meanwhile the monitoring process is based upon the 'propaganda
model' of the media within a capitalist democracy (note PR was known as
propaganda up to (I think) the 30s). Whichi s not a biased model
according to one's political position. It is mainly based upon a market
and power analysis of the media system and inherent biases stemming
from this.
It's as biased as a market analysis of the car industry.

Hmmm. A system that seems to be devised and utilised exclusively by members of the far-left which is based on the "inherent biases" resulting from the market and from the powers that be certainly does not sound impartial. Granted, you may have a point, but don't pretend that the propaganda model is not a left-wing setup. The link you provided makes that quite clear.

Quote :

As regards the focus on the 'liberal' press. Well this should be pretty
clear when you think about it, the Murdoch press, or billionaire owned
press is more biased, but the bias of the liberal press is still clear
(but obfuscated) and is often worse. (the power of support from the
pro-war left or humanitarian imperialists for instance)

How is liberal media propaganda worse? For one, liberal media rarely contains as many falsehood as the Murdoch media. Sure there is a discrepancy between the amount of attention given to one side over another, but the Murdoch media also have this, and above and beyond this they also have very clear biased headlines and quite often misleading or blatantly false content.

Quote :

Pax's reply explained how Mediabite monitors and analyses news
reporting. That is a completely different role to acting as a news
source. In any event, as you are concerned about balance, I would have
thought you would welcome the addition of another left wing news source
or news analysis site: the media are overwhelmingly dominated by
privately owned liberal or right wing "organs". Do you think there
should only be one right wing news site and the rest closed down?

Well if you take the Lisbon example I gave. The site did nothing to "analyse" the many anti-Lisbon biases which manifested themselves in the media. So it is quite clear that MB applies its "propaganda model" style analysis quite selectively. It would be naive to say that the Murdoch media, the Sunday Times or even the Village is not affected by market forces.

HI ECU
I think you may have missed the point of MediaBite. The purpose of the project is to criticise/scrutinise the so-called left wing/liberal media's failure to take on the establishment. If you read the 'about us' it's all set out there. It specifically states that right wing papers are not the object of its interest because the editors believe they are more straightforward about their agenda.

Interviewees to date: Fintan O' Toole, Lara Marlowe, Jo MacAnthony, Frank Connolly, Eddie Holt, Noam Chomsky, Pepe Escobar and others.

I'ts not supposed to be like Indymedia - it's something quite different.

Aragon wrote:

If you read the 'about us' it's all set out there. It specifically states that right wing papers are not the object of its interest because the editors believe they are more straightforward about their agenda.

Fair enough. I missed that bit.