It is my personal opinion that there is a bias in the media . . . against Fred Thompson's candidacy for President.
I dislike the formulation, "the media" to describe Big Journalism becauseThe claim of lack of bias is an unprovable negative, even if it were true. And although it may not be possible to prove that a report is biased at the time it is reported, it is possible to analyze reporting in a historical context and clearly see that it is heavily biased. The bias of journalism is that the things that the AP knows that you don't - the latest news - is important. Occasionally it is, but that is usually not the case.
- although movies and TV shows are in fact liberal, they are fictional - and cannot be made "unbiased" without censorship, which would be a bias all its own.
- "media" is a plural noun - and Big Journalism is a single entity, albeit one with many faces. At root, Big Journalism is the Associated Press, a monopoly on the delivery of news over the telegraph wire. To defend itself against the charge that it is a monopoly of propaganda power, the AP started claiming to be objective over 150 years ago. And all the faces of Big Journalism - The New York Times, ABC News, Time, etc - are united in claiming that journalism - including that of their nominal competitors - is objective.
Bias in favor of the novel is bias against the status quo, against conservatism. Fred Thompson is the most clearly conservative potentially successful contender for nomination to the presidency in the Republican Party, and of course there is no conservative contender for the nomination of the Democratic Party. Consequently, bias against Thompson is strictly a dog-bites-man story.
Huckabee and McCain are conservative in their own way - but then, Al Gore is "conservative" from the POV of wanting to prevent change to the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere. The American "status quo" against which "liberals" rant is one in which freedom and equality of opportunity (albeit imperfect) reward incentive, diligence and perseverance - and it very unconservatively promotes progress and therefore promotes change. The alternative to American "conservatism" of that sort is American "liberalism" - which pays lip service to liberty but attacks the very notion of the possibility of virtue apart from that which lies in mere criticism of the successful.
The Market for Conservative-Based News
I also find "Orwellian" the MSM morphing "swiftboating" into a term meaning exactly the opposite of what the Swiftees actually did. The Swiftees were the truth tellers, God Bless 'em!
Absolutely. In fact, Newspeak abounds in our political discourse for the simple reason that we have a monopolistic Big Journalism establishment controlling the way terms are used and coined.The bias of journalism is that journalism is all-important. To be all-important, journalism must be objective. Therefore (in Newspeak logic), journalism is objective. "Objective journalism" is one (Newspeak) word. In Newspeak there are several words for "good." "Objective" is one, but "objective" as I noted is part of the Newspeak word "objective journalism" and is not to be used to describe anyone (no matter how much they agree with journalism's perspective) not actually employed as a journalist. Indeed, if a journalist does not project the perspective of Big Journalism - well, strike that sentence because in Newspeak it is as illogical as speaking of dry water. Whoever does not project the perspective of Big Journalism is "not a journalist, not objective."
Other Newspeak words meaning "good" in Newspeak include, "liberal," "progressive," and "moderate." A person perfectly in accord with the perspective of Big Journalism but not employed as a journalist is accorded any Newspeak word for "good" which suits him - anything except "objective," that is. But let that same person - George Stephaopolis, for example - be hired as a journalist, and Shazam! Boom! Instant objectivity.
Just as the Newspeak word for "good" is not "good," the Newspeak word for bad is not "bad" - nor even, as Orwell had it, "ungood." Newspeak words for "bad" are "conservative" and "right wing." Or, for that matter, "Swift Boating."
Conservatives as FR knows and loves them are a strange breed of "conservative." They want to conserve - keep going - a revolution. In contrast to the French or Russian revolutions, the American revolution enshrined a plan for a continuous revolution. The American Revolution was about freedom - and freedom makes change inevitable. The conservative element in the American Revolution is the Constitution, and its definition of the ground rules which are to regulate change and, in a very real sense, maximize progress.
What it pleases Big Journalism to call "progressive" is in fact reactionary against the change which the American Revolution, operating through its rules enshrined in the Constitution, has unleashed. Environmentalism and its extreme form, regulation of the generation of a gas we all exhale, is patently a reaction against the development and the human expansion unleashed by American "conservatism."