Examination of Media Bias in Katha Pollitt's Article "Kissing & Telling"

In the nation Katha Pollitt argues in her article ‘Kissing & Telling’ that the media is against liberals, and or her views. Allan Levite in his article for the National review, ‘Bias Basics,’ Levite argues that the medial is biased against conservatives. Both authors present arguments with deficiencies. They both have motives to be biased. One of them has to be right, but using the proof the two authors sight you could not tell which one. The two columnists each write biased columns that do not prove their points well.

In Pollitt’s argument she says that the media ignores the real issue. Which is a male harassing a female. She says that the media ignores the other cases of more serious offenses dealing with the same subject. She sights two other cases that she would have us believe are more commonplace than incredibly stupid elementary school kids. Her first example is the case dealing with the sixth grader who received death threats does not even clearly state what kind of hate was involved. It could have been sexual harassment, or it could have been

because she carried Spam around on her forehead. She only names two cases as her examples. So in her magical ‘evil people bash feminism land’ her argument is just as common as what she is complaining about, or maybe less common. No one is trying to bash feminism. This was not planned out to happen. (I hope)

Also, kids in elementary school always are not thinking about getting their secretaries to have sex with them for raises. Personally, I think kids are stupid. Even I was a stupid kid. When I was in third grade a guy, Tommy, bit my ear. Because he bit my ear I have not become accustomed to Sado Masochist gay sex dealing around ear biting. Tommy has not been going around biting people’s ears and getting turned on by this. He now cleans pools for a living. I doubt either of us cared at the time. Although I remember some crying. People who pee in their pants in grade school usually do not pee in their pants when they are grown up to be heads of the country. We would know about it if they did. Many children form weird attractions to doing many things when they are small. I used to think Bon Jovi was the coolest band ever. Now I laugh at my obvious immaturity, because I do not believe that anymore. Kids have no idea what the hell they are doing they’re ‘dumb’ and ‘cute.’ (And getting more sexual activity than me and those bastards can’t even multiply)

Even Pollitt justifies my argument of the kid does not know what the hell he is doing. ‘De’ Andre’s whole family was famous, until they stopped returning reporters’ calls after he punched and bit a teacher.’ The kid probably will not grow up, and go around biting and punching teachers.

Pollitt also tries to argue the point when she asks ‘And how can we raise children to respect another’s limits at 13–and– 30 if we think it’s cute when we do not.’ She compares what the kids did to ‘sexual aggression and violence.’ This is a little bit strong comparison for a bunch of kids who probably have wet their bed’s recently. They do not exactly have secretaries to bribe with raises yet, or wives to beat. When I think of violence the first thing that comes to my mind is tearing one button from a skirt. (Really) I do not think these kids are anyway dealing with anything but their own ignorance. Charge them with stupidity or immaturity. Come on, these kids are not even old enough to laugh in health class everytime someone says the word ‘penis.’

Another completely bogus thing that Pollitt suggest is if John Leo, who wrote the column on if he would have though it was so cute if the boys had kissed other boys. Would the principal have thought that it was sexual harassment and suspended them in the first place? I doubt it.

It would appear also that because of Pollitt’s past history she does hold some anger towards people who mess with others when they are children. She does not appear to be too much a centrist when it comes to punishment of kids mistreating others. In fact, she probably holds some deep psychological grudge against kids who annoy others. Maybe to get back at the ones who annoyed and mistreated her she decided to write this column thinking that Johnathan and De’ Andre are just like the ones who angered her. This is the first reason for bias. There is probably a really good reason why this article is in a magazine that is so left winged it is probably communist.

Levite’s using the most incredibly dense, and stupid idea I have seen in quite a while. To decide whether the media is liberally or conservatively biased he uses a keyword search. Putting words into a keyword search is by no stretch of the imagination reliable for anything. Example: If I type ‘free porn’ into the Internet search, Infoseek”” I get some crap against child pornography, some Palmala Anderson non porn stuff, some crap on pay me some money ‘free’ service, and actually only one real ‘Free Porn’ site. Keyword searches take two words and find them anywhere in the document. If I said, ‘I can see out over the airplane’s wing and on the right side I see a bird,’ according to his search I am a pinko commie liberal bastard. A better example of keyword searches: I put the words ultra left and right wings into the searches. Right wing gives me information on cults. Left wing gives me information on flying. Consider Waco, and Montana cults and militias. That was front page news every day, and I do not seem to know of any left wing cults. Probably because using a true Democrat a left wing cult cannot exist unless it happens to be a separate country. (See Aaron Burr) The fact that Levite did not actually check to see what ever the articles are on, or he just neglected to mention what they were about. If he did not mention them, might it be because it might hurt his argument so he left that subject out? If he did not even check the articles, why? Does he have an actual life? Or do his statistics prove what he wants to say so he decides why go any further?

I also wonder how he decided upon what terms were considered offensive to each party. Some terms considered to describe the right wing consist of everything from white supremacist rich capitalist to Nazi. Many of the psychotically dangerous right wing people I know skip the talk of ‘ultra liberal’ and ‘liberal attack,’ and go straight to ‘you pinko commie bastard’ or the ever popular and multi-useful derogatory comment, ‘fag.’ As other essay’s discussed in class columnist can use the terminology more often than others, but there is still the same amount of columns biased on both sides. This is also effected by other factors, such as editors who value comic strips more than columnist etc.

The methods used by Levite are not sufficient proof of the claim he does so well to argue in the first paragraph. He uses data that is based on the actual amount of reporters and editors who are liberal and conservative from the Los Angeles Times, and The Media Elite. If he would have used more data like the ones he used in the first paragraph then there would be no way to actually argue his entire essay. The first paragraph of the essay goes to prove his point beautifully. Damn shame the other three pages are completely useless because of the data he uses. (unless you run out of toilet paper) Quite possibly Levite’s data could be read by a left wing supporting columnist and turned around in his face with a look into the actual articles Levite uses in his search.

If you plan on showing how something such as the media is biased then the one collecting the research should not be biased in the first place. Biased researchers look for what they are trying to prove instead of the whole truth, and might disregard something that does not prove their point. My suggestion is to get someone who hates both sides and will try to ruin them both.

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