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Finally, someone quantifies what I've known for years. THERE IS NO LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS! IN FACT, THERE IS A BLATANT CONSERVATIVE MEDIA BIAS!
With common sense alone, how can anyone claim that there is a liberal media bias that directly benefits Democrats and their positiohns on abortion, guns, policies and candidates? I mean, just take a spin around your local radio dial. Spend some time watching Fox, MSNBC, CNN, Tim Russert, ABC Sunday Morning, even CBS's Face the Nation with Bob Scheiffer.
Read the Washington Post's editorial page and its lineup of columnistsand with the exception of Paul Krugman, how about that liberal bastion, the New York Times? How about the prevalence of the same talking heads/pundits day after day on the same channels? How about having 2 hours of O'Reilly and then Hannity disturbing the peace on your radio only to then have to suffer through them on Fox at night?
Where, oh where, is the Liberal Media bias?
I thought I was going insane over the last 10 years listening to these very same right wing pundits and their cohorts screeching daily 24/7 over the Liberal Media Bias when I knew they were lying. How come no one saw it? How come no one challenged this constant lying propaganda?
Well, one person has and it's Eric Alterman, the author of a lucid and terse blog site, who happens to be a contributor to the Nation as well as MSNBC (sometimes).
His newest book, "What Liberal Media?" is a must read for anyone who has felt their reality challenged by the Big Lie of Liberal Media Bias.
While I've read some tepid reviews, especially from those he's rightfully cited in his book as being less than honest, I can no longer watch the news or read columns or listen to Hate Talk Radio without a very jaundiced perspective.
When Robert Novak again attacks the Liberal Media or as Alterman refers to it, the So-Called Liberal Media (SCLM) it's not only difficult to grant him any credibility, it's horrifying to realize that so many viewers actually believe him! I mean, this guy is on CNN at least 3 times a day and has 3 programs on which he is a mainstay. He is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Sun Times and he's annoying insofar as he is damned near on the air spouting his venom every time I turn on the TV.
So for him to bleat about the SCLM is ludicrous.
Alterman's main premise is that there is NO Liberal Media Bias. And he lucidly proves his claim in every chapter.
He shreds the 'objectivity' of the Media Punditocracy in both print and Cable citing many examples of their laziness, shoddiness and ignorance of the facts. At the end is the fact that the pundits and the SCLM so often rush to publication/airing of stories that are just so much gossip that any Liberals who get face time are always on the defensive. They always have to prove the Pundits wrong. And as we all know about lies and scandals, the charges are printed on Front Page and the corrections are in the Classifieds.
Alterman cites so many examples that it's difficult to keep them all in mind. But the sheer volume of Right Wing lies about the SLCM is enough to make one nauseous.
Alterman's screeds about the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board are especially worth noting. Here is a group of extremist ideologues who bear no resemblance to the reportorial/journalistic part of that great financial paper. This group has a established a history of vitriol, vituperation, vulgarity and outright lies that makes the National Enquirer pale in comparison. Their constant barrage against Clinton and all Liberals during the 90's was a disgrace. And it should have been denounced as a disgrace had anyone, Liberal or Conservative with integrity, had the courage or platform to respond.
But no. Nothing of the sort happened. Very few ever stood up to the WSJ or to their cohorts on MSNBC, CSNBC, Fox and CNN. As a matter of fact, rank hypocrites like John Fund (abortion provider and girlfriend abuser) gets more face time than any liberal talking head.
Alterman shows how pervasive the incestuousness of Cable and network and Print media is. People like George Will, Haninity, et al write sybndicated columns in the Washigton Post or New York Times. They write regullarly for Time and newsweek and US News and World Report. And they appear with frequency on every Cable Network, either as Pundits or permanent roundtable guests. They are everywhere. Even hacks like Hannitya nd O'Reilly get their own Radio Talk Shows.
So, where is the SCLM?
It is, as Alterman proclaims, NOWHERE! It's a damnable myth that the Right Wing continues for its own continued dominance over the information and viewpoints offered to Americans. The consolidation of the giant Media Conglomerates who own newspapers, magazines, book publishers, TV Networks and Cable Networks is responsible for the unholy melding of right wing ideology with the Republican Party.
American journalism is hardly liberal. American journalism is little more than a shill for the ideologies of the GOP.
Alterman makes the case brilliantly by citing examples of the Punditocracy's echoing the GOP Party line and how when caught, they smugly ridicule the messenger. He also says the drift of the Media to the right is the result of the right's 'working the refs'. This is where a coach so continually pounces on the referees of a game that eventually they let a bad call go just to avoid being attacked.
The Right has done this against the Media for years in a concerted effort to make the Media itself so self-conscious that they will avoid any appearance of being liberal to the point of countenancing blatant unfairness.
As an example:
The unconscious casting of the conservative pundit David Broder as an anti-ideological soothsayer and the neoconservative New Republic as a liberal voice has the predictable effect of recalibrating an intire ideological spectrum toward the right. Calling a conservative a centrist and a newoconservative a liberal means that no genuine liberals are allowed into the game. No less significant, however, is the issue of the distance the specturm has traveled into right field.Alterman uses ample evidence when he proves this point by showing just how conservative TV Media types such as Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Howard Kurtz, George Stephanopolous, O'Reilly and Hannity truly are despite their own self-serving promotional tags.
And you know, with the exception of O'Reilly who featured Alterman for about 3 minutes, none of the others have had the courage to feature him alone. And Mtthews and Russert and Hannity have all given ample time to the likes of Ann Coulter, the blond anorexic bimbo, and Bernie Goldberg, the teller of tall tales.
Alterman's absence from the main TV and Radio and print media only go illustrate his point that there is little room for liberals or even those who dispute the Liberal Media Bias in the corporate mainstream Media.
It's a damned shame.
This book is required reading for anyone who has felt disenfranchised over the last decade. This book is required reading for those who have 'known' in their guts that the Media has drifted to the far Right, but have been made to feel crazy because this very same Media so completely dismisses their complaints and belittles their concerns.