A Trenchant Comment on the Media Matters Report
There’s been a good discussion in the comments in the post below about the “liberal” bias of the SD press, at least on the editorial pages. Bob Ellis, Doug Wiken, Greg Belfrage, and others have weighed in with some excellent comments presented in a very thoughtful manner.
But one comment from a “John” I thought was particularly insightful and trenchant:
Don’t ya’ just long for the days when a local newspaper editor exercised the social responsibility inherent in the Fourth Estate to present balanced commentary on social and political issues?
In light of all evidence to the contrary Bob holds on to his demogagary - he is a True Believer, as described in Ike’s favorite book, True Believers, by Eric Hoffer. The right wing demogagary of the media is traced in The Republican Noise Machine, by David Brock. It is quite the modern spectacle how the right wing can plant Judith Meyer as a faux reporter into the New York Times to amplify their lies, all the while using faux aghast that the paper is liberal to its core so should not be trusted. Or have O’Reilly or Limbaugh in the main stream media and at the same time pretend the media is liberally biased. One should also find it troublesome that our state’s universities’ journalism departments sheepishly concede their Fourth Estate moral obligation to call out the faults inherent in current practices by the South Dakota media - afterall, is not that what tenure is largely about, having the academic freedom to address social ills.
Well said, John.
Top: Cartoon by Scott Ehrisman.
Todd Epp
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Reader Comments (3)
Also, I almost laughed out loud when John included Rush Limbaugh in the "mainstream media." Even those who love Rush and agree with him don't consider him part of the "mainstream media." And while he does present a large amount of news on his show, like O'Reilly he does so in an op/ed format--far more so than even O'Reilly.
So even if you count Fox News in the mainstream media (which I do), and even if you pretended Rush was "mainstream media," it's still laughable to contend that these two constitute imbalance or even balance to NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, NPR, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Associated Press, et al.
Here they they are along with market share:
Disney (owner of ABC, market value: $72.8 billion)
AOL-Time Warner (market value: $90.7 billion)
Viacom (owner of CBS, market value: $53.9 billion)
General Electric (owner of NBC, market value: $390.6 billion)
News Corporation (market value: $56.7 billion)
Yahoo! (market value: $40.1 billion)
Microsoft (market value: $306.8 billion)
Google (market value: $154.6 billion)
In 1997 the Westinghouse (CBS) CEO said they existed to serve advertisers, that was their reason to exist. How much unfavorable news does one expect we would hear (CBS radio) or watch concerning an advertiser whom is the networks reason to exist? The above figures do not include the huge consolidation and its control of content inherent in consolidation of radio. Please do not confuse executives at Clear Channel, et. al., with being moderate or even, gasp, liberal; almost all of their executives and those representing the above corporations can be found of lists of pioneers and rangers and other large republican campaign donors.
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) studied of ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News in 2001. They found that 92 percent of all US sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican. This is allegory, not a complete study of the mainstream media, but it shows that there can be heavy political biases in the most popular mainstream media outlets.
Fair studied one year of weekly programs of CNN's Reliable Sources' (Dec 2001 to Nov 2002] with 203 guests. It found Reliable Sources’ guest list strongly favored mainstream media insiders and right-leaning pundits. Female critics were significantly underrepresented, ethnic minority voices were almost non-existent, and progressive voices were far outnumbered by conservatives.
Fair found that PBS was consistent with commerical stations in their biases; 76% of sources were official or “elite” sources; women and people of different ethnicities were far under-represented; Republican sources outnumbered Democract sources by 66% to 33%; issues such as Iraq, Katrina, and immigration all followed conservative leanings. Usually when African Americans were represented the topic concerned Hurrincane Katrina or they were represented as the man on the street, while usually whites were held out as experts in a field. How does this happen when PBS is "publically owned" - it, too, depends upon corporate advertising. Despite its best efforts, it also succumb.
Over recent times the FCC members who are supposed to be the public's watchdog of the Fourth Estate received and went on over 2,500 vacation trips - trips furnished by the mainstream media. After receiving a free vacation, how reliable does one expect that watchdog? Really.
The demagoguery that the mainstream media is liberally biased is, at best allegory, and is unsupported by competent study or analysis. If one doesn't like the studies of FAIR or Media Matters or those of a few university journalism departments (Columbia stands out); then where are the modern alternative studies? Bob, enquiring minds want to know.
It's beyond laughable to claim there isn't overwhelming Leftist bias in the media. You don't even need a study to find it--just watch NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, or PBS in the next 24 hours and you'll find it. Or read the New York Times or Washington Post. Or check out the Media Research Center; they cite examples every day. Or read a couple of Bernard Goldberg's books. Or consult the MSNBC study a few months ago that found 89% of journalists give money to Democrats.
I could cite tons of specific examples, but none of us has time to go through that. Besides, what's the point, John, when some folks will no matter what prove the old saying: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.