Posted on 12/02/2002 2:14:47 PM PST by 1bigdictator
NPR's Liasson & Williams Back Gore on Right-Wing Media Control
There’s “some truth” to Al Gore’s conspiracy theory about media outlets getting their marching orders from Republican Party Chairman Marc Racicot, Juan Williams argued on Fox News Sunday. Mara Liasson agreed, explaining that what Gore was simply “expressing is deep frustration on the part of Democrats who are now truly out of power in Washington and they don’t have the kind of editorial voice representing them in the media...they can’t get their events covered, they feel that they can’t get their message out.”
This from Williams and Liasson, an analyst and a reporter respectively for National Public Radio, the leading broadcast media voice of liberal aspirations.
After suggesting Gore’s theory rests on “the edge of looniness,” columnist Charles Krauthammer pointed out the obvious: “Liberals have had a monopoly for about 30 years and all of a sudden one or two opposition forces arise -- Washington Times, Fox News, Weekly Standard -- and all of a sudden it’s a great conspiracy. This is absurd.”
Near the end of the panel segment on the December 1 Fox News Sunday, host Tony Snow read aloud some of what Gore told the New York Observer in an interview published earlier in the week.
Gore claimed: “Fox News Network, the Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh -- there’s a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media.”
Plus: “Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers which play this game, the Washington Times and others.”
(For Gore's interview with the New York Observer's Josh Benson: http://www2.observer.com/observer/pages/frontpage1.asp)
Snow went first to NPR White House reporter Mara Liasson and she tried to justify Gore’s latest lashing out: “I think that what Al Gore is expressing is deep frustration on the part of Democrats who are now truly out of power in Washington and they don’t have the kind of editorial voice representing them in the media. There’s no doubt that the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Times or the New York Post or the commentary on Fox, is conservative and I think that they’re extremely frustrated, they can’t get their events covered, they feel that they can’t get their message out -- now having a message in the first place is another question -- but I think that’s a real kind of cry of frustration from Al Gore and other Democratic leaders have said the same thing.”
Charles Krauthammer countered: “A 'cry for help?’ I’m a psychiatrist, I don’t usually practice on camera, but this is the edge of looniness. This idea that there’s a vast conspiracy. It sits in a building, it emanates, it has these tentacles, is really at the edge. He could use a little help.”
Juan Williams, who until recently hosted a talk show for NPR, nonetheless agreed with Gore’s theory: “Well it seems to me that there’s some truth to it. It seems to me that there’s some truth to the idea, I know conservatives say 'oh you know look at the New York Times is this liberal organ especially under Howell Raines the new editor, they’re going after the Masters and all the rest,’ but you know what, it seems to me that there is more of a direct and sort of out there statement coming from Rush Limbaugh, and the Washington Times, and people who are willing to say look, we are outright proud to be conservative and here’s what we stand for and we don’t think there’s any need to make an apology.”
Krauthammer snickered: “Liberals have had a monopoly for about 30 years and all of a sudden one or two opposition forces arise -- Washington Times, Fox News, Weekly Standard -- and all of a sudden it’s a great conspiracy. This is absurd.”
But Liasson stood by Gore’s basic complaint about a media biased to the right: “I don’t think it’s a great conspiracy, but the fact is I think Juan is right. There are more voices of opinion in terms of talk radio shows, editorial pages and they’re not liberal.”
Fred Barnes got in the last word as time ran out: “They’re such a minority though. I’d like to think that conservatives had a bigger voice, but they’re such a small minority compared to this vast media we have out there, mostly liberal, mostly friendly to liberals and the Democratic Party, that Al Gore is just wrong.”
Bottom line: How many liberals would trade the liberal slant of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News and PBS, as well as the New York Times and Washington Post, for one cable news network, a Washington, DC newspaper out-sold seven-to-one in its home market and one national radio personality?
(Excerpt) Read more at mrc.org ...
So Juan Williams thinks one has to apologize for being conservative?
For NPR shills to discuss media bias is like a couple of fish discussing water. They are up to their ears in it, but they have no perspective to understand what it is, and how it is different from air, for instance.
If I ever become a Member of Congress for real, one of my first acts will be to challenge all comers, specifically Barney Frank, to a live debate on the floor -- during Special Orders when the official day is over. It will be an Oxford-style debate, on the subject, "Resolved, that NPR news is too biased to deserve a cent of taxpayer subsidy." It will be done by random choice among the transcripts of "All Things Considered" for the previous 30 days. The debaters will have half an hour to prepare their remarks based on the selected day's transcript, and then will go at it with hammer and tongs.
I hope that comes to pass.
Congressman Billybob
Amen. The fact that they're even debating this is a stunning sea change.
Algore invented the internet, though, remember? <\sarcasm>
Yo, Republicans! Your recent victory will most certainly be short lived if you do not once and for all de-fund the left wing-nuts at NPR.
I heard a Russian born immigrant say that the American media is worse than the Pravda and more effective. He said it was because Russians knew that the Pravda was full of lies. Whereas the NYT and the like do not tell the readers, knowing and unknowing alike, that they are biased. They pretend to be main stream. Thus, the average reader does not question the headlines and articles.
Wow! Talk about projection. This is exactly what happens in liberaldom and it's been happening for decades.
They still think the problem is that the Democrats didn't get their message out.
The problem, of course, is that the Democrats did get their message out--loud and clear.
Not only that, but what REALLY annoys them is that it is these "conservative" sources that ultimately got out their real message. Every little kooky thing these socialists say has been put out for millions to hear. They absolutely hate it. They want conservative sources shut down so that they can continue to spread their extreme message to their constituencies while having it whitewashed for the rest of Americans on the nightly news. They absolutely abhor the light of public scrutiny, and that is what is causing their downfall.
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