What Liberal Media?

This topic has long been a pet peeve of mine: the liberal media. No, it's not that the media is liberal and that is my concern, it's that if people say something loud enough and long enough, people will begin to accept it as fact, and that is what has happened with the term "liberal media." Norman Solomon writes of its origins quite well in his 2002 article found on Common Dreams when he says, "Ever since Vice President Spiro Agnew denounced news outlets that were offending the Nixon administration in the autumn of 1969, the specter has been much more often cited than sighted." Solomon goes on to say that "the liberal media is largely an apparition." Very true.

I must say, though, that I give conservatives great credit here. As Solomon stated, the liberal label began to be mentioned in conjunction with the media during the Nixon administration, but it really picked up steam during the Reagan years. It was clearly part of the conservative agenda to take over America (and the world). The thought was that if conservatives started screaming about the liberal bias of the media long enough, the liberal label would stick. The plan worked to perfection.

Not only did it work in the sense that many gullible Americans actually believed it, but it worked within the media as well. Members of the press who leaned to the right felt they should continue to do so, thinking it helped to "balance" things. But those who were neutral or leaned left were so hyperaware of the liberal label that they actually became more conservative in their reporting. So what has happened over the past 20 years or so is that the media has actually turned conservative.

Sure conservative-funded studies have come out attempting to prove the liberal bias, but as Eric Alterman shows in this article, and moreso in his book "What Liberal Media?" the methods used in these studies to determine bias are quite laughable.

I also hear conservatives refer with great disdain to "the mainstream media." Doesn't the mainstream media include FOX News, The Washington Times, the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal and media personalities such as Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Joe Scarborough, and Michael Savage, just to name a few? I'm wondering where all the liberal news and talk shows are?

So now CNN, which I think is slightly right of center, is called liberal. I guess it IS compared to FOX's overtly and extremely conservative stance. It's all relative. And National Public Radio has for many years been decried as "liberal media," yet a study a couple of years ago by the watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting indicated that NPR used conservative and Republican sources much more often that liberal or Democratic sources.

Remember the 2000 Presidential race? The mainstream media gave favorable press to Bush from the start, ignoring stories about his drug and alcohol abuse, his shady business past, and the fact that he went AWOL while in the National Guard. Meanwhile, Al Gore was labeled as a liar and an exaggerator, even though there was no basis to most of those claims, such as the "I invented the Internet" myth. And even when the election was blatantly stolen in Florida and democracy was lost, the media let the matter slip by fairly quietly.

And the bias continues in advertising. Both CBS and MTV refused to accept advertising from MoveOn.org that was critical of the Bush administration. Yet Army recruiting ads air, ads from the White House appear about how kids smoking marijuana are terrorists, and even this ad is appearing to debunk global warming: catch The Daily Show's take on it here.

Earlier this year, Media Matters for America released a study showing that conservative voices dominate the Sunday political talk shows (Meet the Press, This Week, Face the Nation), which is where political opinions are supposedly debated so the nation can decide on weighy political matters.

A recent example of conservative media bias has occurred recently when "the mainstream media" wet their collective pants in the excitement to say what a great week Bush was having. Honestly, it was a sickening display. After the media has been complicit in moving quickly past one Bush administration scandal or faux pas after another, the guy has a supposedly good week, which is questionable at best, and the media goes nuts repeating it ad nauseum. See what Media Matters reported about the recent Bush lovefest.

So there you have it. A liberal media? I don't think so. The mainstream media has a left-wing agenda? I'd say just the opposite. But I'm sure the myth of a liberal media will continue to be perpetuated as basic demagogy from the right.

And just a bonus, Keith Olbermann (whom I would admit, has a bit of a liberal bias) did give Bill O'Reilly, again, his Worst Person in the World award a couple nights ago. Glad to see someone doesn't let "the conservative media" go unchecked!!!