January 29, 2003
LET'S NOT DICKER OVER TERMS:
Bias Control: Eric Alterman attacks the Right, but victory feels hollow. (John Dicker, 1/23/03, Salt Lake City Weekly)Is the media really liberal? The question is as exhausting as it is inexhaustible, and it screams for qualifiers: Whose media are you talking about?
How about this media: the three major television networks, the two major weekly news magazines; and the major newspaper in the ten biggest cities in America? Is there a single one in that group that isn't left of center?
Hard to think of one. That may be a function of the free market of ideas and that's what viewers/treaders want. But that would still be a bias in favor of the Left.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 29, 2003 3:04 PMFrom http://www.fair.org/extra/0108/fox-main.html
:
"No major newspaper editorial page opposed NAFTA; virtually all endorse U.S. airstrikes on Iraq; and single-payer health care proposals find almost no backers among them."
I suppose it depends on how you define "liberal." I personally judge most media to be moderately liberal on purely social issues, but centrist on economic issues and foreign policy. All these add up to a slight leaning to the left, but a far cry from flaming liberalness.
It might be better to say that the media is partisan Democratic, rather than liberal.
Posted by: pj at January 29, 2003 7:29 PM"Flaming liberalness" it is not. I tend to think that Alturdman and others have a small point when they complain about not being able to get their extreme left-wing views easily heard, but the press bias against Republicans and conservatives is much larger. There was a great Charles Krauthammer column from 2 years ago listing 15 days worth of New York Times
front-page headlines about the upcoming presidential election--you would have to be willfully blind to miss the obvious slant. It was incredible. And this paper influences every major news outlet in America, broadcast or print!
We can argue about the bias in the media until we're blue in the face, since everybody perceives the facts on the ground differently. But a story might illustrate my point: when I turned on the TV a few months ago, I heard a broadcaster talking about an anti-war rally "supported by People for the American Way and other liberal interest groups." My jaw dropped. The media almost never
refers to anybody
as "liberal." The program turned out to be "The 700 Club!"
I would say biased against Republicans and capitalism.
Please add N.P.R. and Hollywood to the list.