The media is conservative. All my life I have heard people say that the media is liberal. But the media is not liberal. The media is conservative.
The first way in which the media is conservative is demonstrated in their tendency to attack any ideas that are out of the ‘mainstream’. The ‘mainstream’ is pretty much another word for the ‘way things are and have been’. The media falsely considers the way things are to be a fair reflection of how most voters wants things to be. But if a poll comes along that says the majority of Americans want the President to be thrown out of office and into jail, the media does not consider that a mainstream view. If a poll comes along that says that six in ten Americans think the President is doing an awful job, that doesn’t mean that the President isn’t a mensch. It just means that there are real left-wing whack jobs out there that don’t like the President.
The media is also conservative in the sense that they support the imperial policies of the Cold War and post-Cold War era. If someone like Hugo Chavez decides to show some independence, they have no problem calling him a ‘dictator’. It doesn’t matter to the New York Times or the Washington Post whether or not Hugo Chavez is a duly elected President of an independent nation. If Hugo Chavez wants to give a stiff-arm to American corporate interests he is a dictator. If he offers to give subsidized heating oil to people in New England and Illinois, he is a ‘crazy’ dictator. If George W. Bush decides he would like a different ruler of Venezuela, then he will be an ‘evil’ crazy dictator. The New York Times and Washington Post wouldn’t dream of disabusing the American public about the true electoral status of Hugo Chavez.
And, if the New York Times and Washington Post are conservative, (an idea that will shock conservatives), the cable news channels are very conservative. On some level this is obvious. There are no shows on cable news that are hosted by Democrats or former Democrats. Well, except for Chris Matthews, who is now an extreme right wing apologist. It’s okay to have partisan shows. But there should be partisan Democratic shows too…to make things…fair and balanced.
But it is not only the partisanly conservative nature of certain cable news that betrays their bias, but the also their limited attempts at straight reporting.
For example, when John Kerry gave a speech before the Senate yesterday calling for a filibuster of Alito, the cable news channels gave very little attention to the substance of his arguments. But they gave a huge amount of attention to the fact that John Kerry had recently been in Davos, Switzerland. John Kerry’s opinions don’t matter to the Cable News channels because John Kerry was at an international conference that happens to be held at a Ski Resort.
If Kerry’s association with the esteemed Davos Conference was not enough to make you dismiss his arguments, the Cable News channels were ready to point out that John Kerry was only making his argument to appeal to Democrats because he wants to make another run for the presidency. They did not point out, however, that Democratic senators are kind of expected to do things that appeal to Democrats. And they barely mentioned that John Kerry was actually fulfilling a promise he made to the American people during his 2004 campaign.
They also did not report on what effect John Kerry’s stand was having on the inboxes of the U.S. Senate. That was left to today’s Washington Post, which was equally dismissive…
Cable News paints a portrait of the political landscape where progressives simply do not exist. Actually, that is not quite correct. Progressives exist as an object of ridicule, but it is very seldom when one is actually seen on television.
Fox News has the most interesting policy in this regard. They are happy to invite progressives onto their programs every once in a while. But they will only invite them if they will agree to espouse some crazy philosophy. For example, if they are willing to defend the North American Man/Boy Love Association, a progressive is quite likely to get some facetime on the Bill O’Reilly show, or maybe Hannity & Colmes. However, if a progressive has a more sane and less morally reprehensible agenda (like, say, clean elections) they will never appear on FOX News.
Some people might argue that the media treats the extreme right wing the same way that they treat the extreme left wing. But they would be wrong on two counts. First, the media treats the entire left wing like they are crazy. Only the most moderate and accommodating of left-wing politicians are afforded any facetime on television (the lovable Barney Frank excepted). But the right-wing, the far right-wing, they are not only given facetime, but respectability…AND THEIR OWN SHOWS.
Let’s be clear about this. Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, Bill O’Reilly, Pat Buchanan, etc., are not moderate Republicans. Tony Blankley is the editor of the Moonie-owned Washington Times. These people represent views that are far out of the mainstream of American public opinion. Their views are certainly more radical to “the way things are and the way they have been” than the views of Howard Dean, or John Kerry, or, perhaps, even Al Sharpton. And yet right-wing shills have their wisdom offered up to the American people every night.
The media is conservative. They don’t cover the fact that 13% of Americans lack medical insurance. They don’t report that most Americans want the President to be removed from office. They consider gay rights only so far as gay rights (allegedly) help explain why Democrats do so poorly in elections. They are willing to gloss over outrages like the Downing Street Memos, Jeff Gannon in the White House press room, day traders in Bill Frist and Tom DeLay’s offices, widespread torture, etc. But they are all too happy to obsess over a blowjob, or an ill-timed scream, or to give airtime to the Swift-Boat Liars, or convicted felons like G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, and Charles ‘Tex’ Colson.
The Abramoff scandal provides another example. Abramoff’s clients reduced the amount of money they directed to Democrats, but the media insists that scandal is bipartisan. The scandal is that the Democrats have been so shut out of the gravy train that they can’t find any that are implicated in the l’affair Abramofff. This is the most unipartisan scandal since Watergate. You won’t find any Democrat that was supportive of the K Street Project. Somehow, the media manages to fudge the facts and blur the clarity. And that only serves to protect Republicans and to keep them in office.
Remember Whitewater? The New York Times spent Clinton’s entire presidency hyping that bit of nothing. Remember Wen Ho Lee? Jesus! Bill Clinton and Bill Richardson were letting the Chinese steal our nuclear secrets. Or so the New York Times said. Until they had to retract it all and apologize.
The next time someone says the media is liberal, ask them to name one liberal person on television. The media is conservative. And they are in league with Satan…er…Cheney. Ask Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Andrea Mitchell, Judy Miller, etc., why they continue to cover the Plame investigation as though they are not a part of the cover-up. You want a liberal media? Read this blog.
