[Nonstatist]

the need to maintain a veneer of impartiality usually prevents direct ideological instruction.

SO what? Ideological propaganda is still propaganda, in bucketfuls. Gobs and gobs of it; in over 150 newspapers in the country and ubiquitously over the airwaves. Who wants a radio station shouting the same tripe, only stridently? This could never work. I agree with another poster; it dies in November, no matter what.

[maryz]

the need to maintain a veneer of impartiality usually prevents direct ideological instruction.

SO what? Ideological propaganda is still propaganda, in bucketfuls. Gobs and gobs of it; in over 150 newspapers in the country and ubiquitously over the airwaves.

Ramesh Ponnuru points out in Why They Hate Him [Bush] that "The pretense to objectivity of an NPR may seem laughably or infuriatingly false to us conservatives. But that pretense imposes real constraints on the media. The liberalism has to be kept implicit. Dan Rather may be more effective than, say, Michael Moore in getting Americans without deep political convictions to absorb liberalism. But for the very reason he is more effective, he is less emotionally satisfying to liberals [emphasis added]."