Tuesday, September 7, 2010

"Liberal Media" Just a Myth

Chances are that if you've paid any attention to politics over the last 10 years or so, you've heard someone lament the rise of the "liberal media." This tag, uttered on cable news networks and conservative talk radio, is designed to lead one to believe the mainstream media leans to the political left, giving Democrats an unfair advantage in today's political discourse.

Never mind that conservatives have the backing of large corporations, some of which own media outlets.

The media today is anything but liberal -- a point that was driven home for me yet against Monday evening when I read an Associated Press story about the speech President Obama gave in Wisconsin on Labor Day.

Before I continue, a little Journalism 101, since I studied journalism and mass media in college. Writers are taught that the first four to five paragraphs of a news story should hit home the most important aspects of a story -- editors here are operating under the assumption that readers might not take in the full article, instead skimming over the first few paragraphs to get the gist of the story.

As such, the writer puts the most important information up high, leaving less significant details and some bit of context for later in the article -- if not for later articles.

Now, with that in mind, re-read the AP story in the above link. If you'll notice, the first paragraph mentions the speech, but the next four paragraphs focus on Republican opposition and the slim chances of the proposal passing Congress.

We don't find out the particulars of the president's proposal until the 18th paragraph of the story; so for a story that's supposedly about President Obama's new job-creation proposal, the article fails. More importantly, though, this sort of thing drives the narrative, and by placing the thought of Republican opposition ahead of the specifics of the proposal, the AP is helping drive the narrative away from facts -- thus helping conservatives.

I don't buy that this was a simple oversight; after all, editors are paid quite well to spot such journalistic deficiencies and fix them. Any editor worth a damn would've noticed this article's screwed-up priorities and called upon the writer to fix them. Especially for the Associated Press, an organization that distributes news stories to websites and newspapers all over the world.

You don't get much more mainstream than the AP.

Then again, real journalism is a dying animal these days; facts and true analysis often fall in favor of he-won-she-lost storylines and minutia that ultimately serves no purpose when the proverbial dust settles.

The Park 51 controversy, anyone?

But let's examine this myth of the liberal media more closely, shall we? Consider the following:

-An entire cable station, Fox News, is the de facto propaganda wing for the Republican Party. On top of a bevy of conservative commentators like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin, the network's news hours are tinged with conservative rhetoric and there is a relative paucity of liberal ideas. The station doesn't even try to hide its affiliations.

-MSNBC, the supposed liberal opposite of Fox News, employs two prominent conservatives; former Congressman Joe Scarborough, who co-hosts the network's morning show "Morning Joe," and uber-conservative defender of the oppressed white majority Pat Buchanan. I realize MSNBC employs the likes of Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz, but if it was really Fox's mirror image, would Buchanan really be on the payroll?

-Just about every television station, newspaper and website of note today is owned by a large conglomerate; by definition, corporations are conservative. Considering Viacom owns CBS and GE owns NBC News and the Tribune Company owns countless newspapers throughout the country, do you really think corporate shareholders would stomach their media outlets promoting a liberal agenda -- one that would probably harm their precious bottom line?

-Not that long ago, CNN had Erick Erickson on its payroll. Yes, that Erick Erickson -- he who created the conservative blog RedState and once referred to retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter a "goat-f***ing child molester" and called two U.S. Senators "health care suicide bombers." That's not even counting the time he called President Obama's reception of the Nobel Peace Prize "an affirmative action quota." And CNN gave this guy a job!

-Media narratives on cable news and the Internet no longer focus on the substance of real issues; it seems like every week brings a new controversy that does little more than distract us from the teetering economy, record foreclosures and other important matters. Instead of talking about unemployment, today's media focuses on a proposed community center in downtown Manhattan. Or a disgraced USDA worker whose comments before the NAACP were doctored to make her seem racist. Or a community service organization dedicated to helping low-income Americans being demonized with more misleading video. Or rumors that our democratically-elected president is either foreign or Muslim or both.

-The AP and select other news outlets do in fact debunk GOP myths and conservative talking points -- like the birther conspiracy -- but it's often days or weeks after the fact; by which point, the narrative has already gained enough steam that the debunking has little, if any, effect. There even comes a point where the debunking, no matter how necessary, only calls more attention to the nonsense it's disproving, thus fueling the conservative narrative even further and damaging both our political discourse and the prospects of real change taking effect.

-What determines the value of a news or opinion show on one of the cable news outlets? The credibility of the host and the quality of his or her content? If that were the case, The Rachel Maddow Show would be the highest-rated news show on cable TV. Ratings -- and advertising -- are king, because with ratings and advertising comes revenue ... followed by profits. And considering much of the mainstream media today is corporate-owned (see above), profits trump all else -- even truth. Why bother informing people when fear-mongering and lying makes so much more cash?

Liberal media is a myth; for every Olbermann or Maddow or The Nation, there's five Becks or Limbaughs or Weekly Standard and Christian Science Monitor. For the most part, liberal voices and voices of truth (even within the conservative movement) are ignored or marginalized; it's becoming more difficult these days to discern truth from spin, even if you're not watching Fox or reading the Wall Street Journal.

For further proof, let me provide a transcript. This is from Countdown with Keith Olbermann and it originally aired on MSNBC on Dec. 14, 2009. Olbermann was discussing Beck and O'Reilly's collective frothing over a Law & Order storyline that featured a caricature of today's right-wing media personalities. I quote from Olbermann (editing for childish name-calling -- while entertaining, it doesn't serve the overall point of this blog):

If Mr. Beck disagrees, or Mr. (Jonah) Goldberg disagrees, or Mr. O'Reilly disagrees, or Mr. (Andrew) Breitbart disagrees, and they think they are being crushed under the weight of this vast, left-wing media conspiracy, they can ...

Go on the (Rush) Limbaugh Show, where (Rush) will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on the Sean Hannity Show, where Sean will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on (Fox & Friends), where Brian Kilmeade will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on Mike Huckabee's show, where Mike will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show, where G. will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on Michael Medved's show, where Michael will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on Mark Levin's high-pitched radio show, where Mark will insist conservatives have no high-pitched voice in the media; or go on the Neil Boortz Show, where he will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on the Lou Dobbs Show, where Lou will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on the Laura Ingraham radio show, where Laura will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on the Neil Cavuto Show, where Neil will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or go on the John Stossel show, where John will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or get David Horowitz to write a column in which David will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or get Bill Kristol to write a column in which he insists conservatives have no voice in the media; or get (Ann Coulter) to write a column in which (Ann) insists conservatives have no voice in the media; or get Peggy Noonan to write a column, in which Peggy insists conservatives have no voice in the media; or get Jonah Goldberg to write a column in which Jonah insists his mom told him conservatives have no voice in the media; or get John Fund to write a column in which John insists conservatives have no voice in the media; or get Brent Bozell to write a column in which Brent insists conservatives have no voice in the media; or get Cal Thomas to write a column in which Cal will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or get Charles Krauthammer to write a column in which Charles will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or get George Will to write a column in which George will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or get Sarah Palin to post something somebody wrote for her on Facebook in which Sarah's ghostwriter insists conservatives have no voice in the media; or get Matt Drudge to steal somebody else's column in which somebody else will insist conservatives have no voice in the media; or pay Armstrong Williams cash to write a column in which Armstrong insists conservatives have no voice in the media, and then he'll expense it.

Because to conclude where we started, with Dick Wolff and Law & Order. In a right-wing dominated media system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the right-wing media who instigate crime, and the right-wing media who prosecute the imaginary liberal media.

Olbermann outlined 25 examples of prominent conservative voices in the media -- and not all of them populate the Fox News airwaves. Many of them, including Noonan and Will, appear weekly in my newspaper (Daily Press, Newport News, Va., owned by the Tribune Company). There are countless other examples to cite -- Olbermann neglected to mention Michelle Malkin, whose books on the evils of liberalism are readily available at Barnes & Noble and Borders, alongside a lot of the other names mentioned above -- but the point is made.

The media today is nowhere near liberal, no matter what the conservative noise machine tells you.

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