Posted on 01/23/2004 5:42:15 AM PST by FlyLow
According to a growing number of journalists, the media’s liberal bias — a trait that most reporters refuse to acknowledge — is no longer a problem. Pointing to the commercial success of conservative talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, plus the Fox News Channel’s dominance of cable TV, many media liberals insist the news industry has all of the fairness and balance it needs.
“It took conservatives a lot of hard and steady work to push the media rightward. It dishonors that work to continue to presume that — except for a few liberal columnists — that there is any such thing as the big liberal media,” Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne argued late in 2002. Dionne, formerly a top political reporter for both the Post and the New York Times, asserted that the media are actually “heavily biased toward conservative politics and conservative politicians.”
But as a new election year begins, the news organizations who truly dominate the media landscape — such as the Big Three broadcast networks and influential papers like the New York Times — remain what they have been for decades: allies of liberalism and enemies of conservative policies. All last year, Media Research Center analysts documented the media’s coverage of a variety of social and political issues, and found that the Big Media in 2003 reliably reflected the liberal mentality that Dionne and others argued was a thing of the past:
Economic Policy: All year, the media waged a campaign against taxpayers while pushing for ever-expanding government spending. TV gave three times more airtime to liberal arguments against President Bush’s tax cuts than conservative rebuttals, emphasizing how “big” and “huge” those cuts were. But when the subject was a much larger federal handout for senior citizens, the same network correspondents found critics who charged the giveaway of at least $400 billion was “still not enough.”
Foreign Policy: The media showered skepticism on the elected defenders of American liberty, not the tyrants and terrorists who threatened us. Before the war in Iraq, journalists such as ABC’s Peter Jennings advertised their open hostility to President Bush’s policies. During the war, NBC had to fire one of its correspondents for appearing on enemy-controlled Iraqi TV to declare the “failure” of the American war plan. After the war, journalists equated the alleged “quagmire” in Iraq to the failed U.S. effort in Vietnam two generations ago. The networks delighted in bad news — on the day of Saddam’s capture, Jennings pessimistically declared that “there’s not a good deal for Iraqis to be happy about at the moment.”
Social Issues: The media marginalized believers in traditional values and celebrated the counter-morality of secular progressives. On the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, TV virtually ignored the well-attended annual March for Life. Supreme Court reporters contrasted “conservatives” with those supporting “gay rights,” as if conservatives are against “rights.” The networks also portrayed Gene Robinson, the first gay Episcopalian bishop, as a courageous pioneer.
Politics: The media showed extreme reluctance to portray liberal Democrats as ideologues and revealed their double-standard on character issues. Although his presidential campaign is based on absolute opposition to the war in Iraq and reinstating the high tax rates of the Clinton era, numerous journalists rejected the notion that Howard Dean is liberal. As the California recall approached, reporters like Tom Brokaw — who refused to detail Juanita Broaddrick’s sexual assault charges against Bill Clinton — hypocritically confronted Arnold Schwarzenegger with last-minute groping allegations. “In many states, what you did would be criminal,” Brokaw lectured the GOP candidate.
Chris Mathews last night while commenting about Dean's explosion said basically that some politicians like Bill Clinton were known for having a temper but had been lucky because the press hadn't caught them at it on tape. BALONEY!!! Bill Clinton was caught on tape screaming obscenities at an aide at his first Easter Party at the White House. Rush Limbaugh showed it on his T.V. show once. It was far worse than what Dean or any other candidate ever did but he was protected by the "Scam-a-lot" crew of reporters. The only worry Bill Clinton had about Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, etc. was if he was going to get a hickey on his butt.
As if the work could be any more dishonored than it now is.
Try as I might, I cannot understand why liberals continue to believe that we can't see their underlying motivations. They must be every bit as stupid as they act.
Welfare reform proved conservatives right in a very public way, notice no one is campaigning on restoring it to its former form. This is a source of frustration for the Left.
"Tax cuts will harm the economy" was for years a very powerful anvil with which to club conservatives, and recent elections prove that the mantra has lost its potency, no doubt due to the very public repudiation of such nonsense in the recent Bush cuts and subsequent uptick in the economy.
More important perhaps is the exposure through events of the Democrats "kinder gentler", appease and apologize foreign policy not only as impractical, BUT DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS. These are results for all to see, and no amount of pretzel logic and media spin can change what the people see and feel.
The media has indeed enabled the Left to live these lies for some time, but the results of their policies have come home to roost in recent years in very public, emotional, and therefore opinion changing ways, and it's my opinion that these public exposures are the cause of all the anger and hate we see from the Left these days.
“It took conservatives a lot of hard and steady work to push the media rightward. It dishonors that work to continue to presume that — except for a few liberal columnists — that there is any such thing as the big liberal media,” Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne argued late in 2002. Dionne, formerly a top political reporter for both the Post and the New York Times, asserted that the media are actually “heavily biased toward conservative politics and conservative politicians.”The existence of a thing cannot be doubted by those who understand its nature and its causes. OTOH any belief, seemingly, can be adhered to by some who find consolation in it and can take pride in holding it.But as a new election year begins, the news organizations who truly dominate the media landscape — such as the Big Three broadcast networks and influential papers like the New York Times — remain what they have been for decades: allies of liberalism and enemies of conservative policies.
The existence and power of PR, for example, are not denied by many. The desirability of the existence of that power can, however, be debated.
After studying the issue of the nexus between the media and political liberalism, I conclude that liberalism is simply a way of pandering to us by pretending that our economic fantasies are reality. We can all see things in retrospect, and our fantasy is that only malevalent or self-interested forces caused those who saw those things in prospect, and labored for them and profited by them, to get the credit for them. The fantasy is that the prudent and diligent prospective action is no more valuable than the easy second guess.
With that unlovely envy motivating prospective readers and voters, is it a marvel that journalists and politicians pander to that? Is it a marvel that journalists prefer to report ill of those with a good bottom line? And that journalist who do more of that prosper more than those who do it less?
Is it a marvel that politicians, faced both with the natural temptation of voters and the pandering of journalism, simply play to the reporters' gallery?
Journalists criticize everyone except other journalists; journalists individually pander to journalism. Like all liberals do. And the claim of journalism's "objectivity" is nothing else but pandering journalsm--pandering to the PR power.
But journalism's criticism is criticism from the left; it falls on the liberal politician as a friendly tug and on the conservative as a hostile attack.
I'm sorry but misleading, lying and propagandizing is not a point of view. Take the debate last for example, every one of those candidates know that the growing economy brought on by Bush's tax cuts will cause revenues to increase, they are counting on the people not to know this. "How can the federal government cut taxes and at the same time spend more money?" Cutting taxes brings economic growth that increases revenue! Liberal media bias is not a harmless other point of view it is a deliberate lie told with real intent to decieve, and should be outed as such.
I encourage all who continue to subscribe to these liberal rags to stop supporting those who would destroy you and all you value. I estimate that my local rag loses about $250 in direct payments and an identical amount in advertising revenue because I refuse to support them.
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