May 5, 2104--Confirmation Bias

For years I enjoyed early mornings with Morning Joe. But, since it is beginning to feel predictable, lately I find myself switching back and forth between Joe, CBS This Morning, and even CNN's New Day. Never mind the conservative zombie cyborgs on Fox News' alliterative Fox and Friends.

Charlie Rose on CBS feels about as grumpy as I, like me not entirely happy to be up early. So I can relate to that. New Day, on the other hand, is more or less devoted to news, but it is disconcerting to watch Chris Cuomo on CNN, who looks just like New York governor Andrew Cuomo's twin and sounds just like his father, former New York governor, Mario. Again, not fully clearheaded that early in the morning, this can be confusing.

My drifting from Morning Joe appears not just to be an isolated phenomenon but is reflected in the ratings of these four morning shows, especially the cable networks' three. According to a report in the New York Times, Joe has slipped to third place among the cable shows. F&F continues to be number one with ratings that equal both New Day's, which has taken over second place, and Morning Joe's. Especially among younger viewers who, for some reason, are considered to be the more desirable.

Cantankerous, good-ol-boy, Morning Joe Scarborough, is not being diplomatic in his reactions. He is quoted as saying, "CNN has made itself a punch line on the Daily Show for its phony breaking-news headlines and breathless coverage of random ocean debris." (He failed to mention that Jon Stewart on the Daily Show devoted an entire segment to making fun of . . . Morning Joe, for being so cozy with the powerful.)

But Joe has a point.

New Day, and the rest of CNN, vaulted over Joe and all other MSNBC programs by devoting almost all of its time to a constant stream of alleged breaking-news about Malaysian ill-fated flight 370, with much of this breaking news really a constant rehashing of "news" that "broke" hours or even days before. It seems that on CNN there is no statute of limitations on anything they deem to be new news.

On the other hand, MSNBC itself gleefully devoted dawn-to-dusk coverage for weeks to the political downfall of Chris Christie. And now are spending most of their time expressing outrage about estranged LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling and the botched execution in Oklahoma.

While over at Fox, it has not been all-news-all-the-time or we-report-you-decide: it has been all-Benghazi-all-the time in their attempt to preemptively bring down the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

But, in addition to noticing myself drifting away from Morning Joe, I am also finding myself losing interest in Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow, late evening hosts of their own shows on MSNBC.

They are feeling to me as doctrinaire and strident coming from the left as the hosts of Fox's evening lineup are from the right. Yes, their views are more fact-based than Fox's and Fox's are more opinion-based, but both are becoming unwatchable because their views are more and more predictable.

In talking with others, liberal as well as conservative friends, they are saying much the same thing; but, for the most part, all are continuing to watch their favorite shows on Fox or MSNBC.

I've been wondering why they, and I, continue to tune in if in fact so much is repetitious and predictable.

I have come to conclude we watch because pretty much everyone on Fox and MSNBC, is predictable. We tune in to have our views confirmed.

In cognitive theory this is called confirmation bias. How we search for new information and interpretations that confirm our perceptions and avoid information and points of view that contradict prior or already formed beliefs.

Since genopolitical research is finding that there may be a genetic basis for our political perspectives and attitudes (see The Righteous Mind), the pull to have these deeply-based views constantly affirmed fits right in with the drumbeat programming on the most ideological TV talk shows.

This is not unlike the need to eat. Feeding the mind a steady diet of ideological views is perhaps not so different from feeding the body.

The body human and the body politics.

April 22, 2013--We Report, You Decide

For the New York Times, it's "All the News That's Fit to Print"; for CNN, it's the self-congrtualtory, "The Worldwide Leader in News"; at MSNBC it's "Lean Forward" (whatever that means); and at Fox News, there is the best tagline of all--"We Report, You Decide."

I mean it, Fox's is far and away in the best tradition of journalism--the news is to be reported, not interpreted; and it is for citizens, not reporters, to decide what's important, true, or urgent.

So what to make of the fact that when the Senate last week was considering expanding background checks on gun buyers, Fox not only didn't report about it, but literally ignored it?

What from this are we supposed to conclude?

First the facts, then you decide--

The morning of the vote, watching "Fox and Friends," one would not have known that it was scheduled for later in the day. Pretty much the entire show was devoted to the explosion at the fertilizer factory in Texas. A big story indeed, with visuals of the sort TV news can't resist; but as the New York Times reported, there was not one sentence about the impending vote in the Senate. Nor was there much through the rest of the day. And, considering the amount of time Fox devoted to the fertilizer plant disaster, it is striking that they failed to report that the last time it was inspected was in 1985.

Over at MSNBC, though, "Morning Joe" divided its time between the Senate vote and the explosion. Host of "Morning Joe," former conservative Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, is a born-again advocate for legislation to expand background checks and other efforts to enhance gun safety. In truth, as an advocate, he also was far from an objective reporter; but at least on his program, considerable time was devoted to the subject and a variety of points of view were represented.

Later in the day, after the Senate voted not to require background checks at gun shows, President Obama made comments in the Rose Garden. All the networks carried it. All but Fox. Viewers were told, if they wanted to watch it, they should look elsewhere.

So before Obama could complete one sentence, Fox cut away to its innocuous afternoon program, "The Five."

When questioned why they did not air the president's speech, Michael Clemente, Fox's executive vice president for news, said that they had covered many presidential speeches on the subject and did not consider this one especially newsworthy.

I get it. Fox News, in spite of its impressive tagline, is not news, it's propaganda.

It was ironic, though, that at the very moment the president was speaking the subject under discussion on "The Five" was media bias. No surprise, liberal media bias.

Not ironic, considering Fox's devotion to the NRA's most radical views, was the missed opportunity for them to spent time on the air gloating about the vote: about how the Senate voted as Fox had advocated--to prevent doing anything more to interfere with alleged Second Amendment rights.

But, I forgot, that would have been untrue to their self-proclaimed mission--reporting so we can decide. Gloating, of course, is not reporting.