Media Madness - Liberals' complaints about right-wing bias are just so much hot air

New York Daily News ^ | 1/12/03 | John Leo

[kattracks]

Rub your eyes. Liberals are complaining that the media are unfair and biased.

Former President Bill Clinton attacked "the increasingly right-wing and bellicose conservative press" and said mainstream media are too docile.

Former Vice President Al Gore called conservatives in the media a "fifth column," which means they are traitors — and people say President Bush is bad with words.

Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said he feared being physically attacked because of Rush Limbaugh's shrill remarks about him on talk radio.

A news article in The New York Times, sounding like a parody from the Harvard Lampoon, said worried Democrats are looking for an "angry liberal" talk-show host or perhaps a "brazen and entertaining" version of Limbaugh. (Unleash Phil Donahue!) The Times said liberals may even try to create a cable channel to serve as "a progressive version of Fox News."

On his Internet site, journalist John Ellis said: "If Democrats believe that they are losing elections because the media are not liberal enough, then they really ought to just give up."

Liberal columnist E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post argued that newsrooms now tilt politically toward the right. He said mainstream media are "heavily biased toward conservative politics and conservative politicians" because they are intimidated by right-wing complaints.

There is even a liberal Internet Web log titled "Take Back the Media" — from the tentacles of the right, that is.

Did you ever think you would live long enough to see pro-conservative media bias become a big issue?

But liberal problems can't be solved by great casting — finding someone to play the role of a lefty Limbaugh. Liberals have several big problems, I think. They lack ideas. They are much too committed to moral self-congratulation over past victories. And they haven't come to terms with the reality that America is a much more conservative nation than it was 25 or 30 years ago.

I hereby offer a reality check. It is a matter of faith among many liberals that talk radio is essentially a haven of what they have deemed angry white males and other assorted fogies. This audience is far more conservative than liberal by 33% to 13%. But here is the rest of Talkers Magazine's 2002 survey of this audience: 21% black, 46% female, 34% college grads, 21% Republican, 14% Democratic, 51% independent, heavily middle-class.

So the angry white males turn out to be a rough cross-section of the population.

Next question: Why do they tend so heavily to be conservative? Political commentators tend to be conservative, too. For every liberal member of the commentariat, there seem to be two or three social conservatives or libertarians. I have no numbers on this, but the conservative trend seems particularly strong among younger columnists and bloggers (Internet commentators with small audiences but rising influence; many bloggers are very good at ankle-biting the mainstream media over inaccuracy and bias).

One argument rippling though the blogging world is that liberals are complaining about conservative media because they lack the skills or will to get out and argue the issues. The RealClear Politics site said this: "Until liberals admit they have been coasting on the backs of a left-leaning national press for years, they have little hope of figuring out how to deal with the battle of ideas that occurs every day via TV, radio, cable, print and the Internet."

Despite Dionne's portrait of a newsroom tilting rightward out of fear, the newsroom culture remains adamantly liberal. Call it the daily disconnect between the newsroom and the general populace. Huge majorities of Americans oppose racial preferences, want immigration limited, resent benefits for illegal immigrants, support the death penalty, are morally troubled by cloning, oppose gay marriage, look favorably on the boy scouts, support parental-consent laws on abortion and want a ban on partial-birth abortion.

In the newsroom, huge majorities take the opposite opinions. When those opinions shine through, as they regularly do in framing and selection of stories, readers and viewers begin to look elsewhere for their information.

Dionne, appearing on CNN's "Reliable Sources," acknowledged that the media have had a bias, "the bias of the educated upper-middle class," which is "not so good," he said, for religious conservatives, unions and the poor.

Yes, and it's also not so good for the military, law enforcement, nonreligious conservatives and people who are proud of America despite its frequent blunders.

Memo to E.J.: Whether you call it a political bias or the class bias of a similarly educated elite, it amounts to the same thing. And it calls for the same reforms.

[Elkiejg]

Memo to E.J.: Whether you call it a political bias or the class bias of a similarly educated elite, it amounts to the same thing. And it calls for the same reforms

Excuse me E.J., but I'm a so called "educated elite" I guess - I'm white, female, educated, middle-age - and I DO NOT believe the national media because they LIE!! What's so funny - or not no funny - is the moaning and crying from the left about this entire issue. For years the left has had full control of the news and how it was presented. It was their right, afterall "they" knew what was best for "us". I grew up in a Democratic household who took the word of Waltere Cronkrite as law but if my parents were alive today, they would NO LONGER belong to the Democratic party. The DNC of today has become Socialist. They are not for the "little person".

[starboardside]

The Democrats are for the "little person", the ones with little brains. Average IQ: Lower than a protozoan.

[RaceBannon]

liberal media bump

[angkor]

They lack ideas.

This is the key to the issue.

Since the 1970's Rats have survived on lies and voter fraud. They have entirely discarded if not perverted the more honorable Democrat agenda of the 30's through mid-60's (which at least included patriotism).

The reason Rats cannot get airtime today is very simple: their "arguments" are vacuous and intellectually corrupt. The "ideas" and positions which they've tailored for network sound bites cannot (and do not) survive the spotlight of extended discourse.

There is actually nothing underpinning the current Rat agenda, unless they want to discuss the virtures of socialism, which they do not.

[RightOnline]

Ditto. I'm white, college educated, and a well-paid professional. In other words.........I'm no toothless redneck with two hounds on the rickety front porch.

I used to watch NBC News regularly and read the local paper cover to cover every day. No longer. I cannot stomach their obfuscation, obvious bias, ridiculous spin, condescension, and outright Socialist bent.

Now? It's FR and Fox News Channel......with talk radio (e.g. Rush) when I can.

[KeyWest]

Ditto. But male. The dems core is with the radical left, which tends to be spoiled rich, poor unmarried women and blacks. If they can get a "new" dem to run, like Clinton, they can attract the middle. But the "new" dem is more pub than dem.

[tom paine 2]

I am similarly educated. Today, it seems as if the real angry white males are the hysterical ranters on the left.

[Tripleplay]

Here's an example of the continued left wing bias of the news. My E-mail to the Detroit Free press this AM:

Your headline in the on-line January 12, 2003 Detroit Free Press

Poll: Majority of Americans oppose action against Iraq

From the text of the Article:

A robust majority of Americans - 83 percent - would support going to war if the United Nations backed the action and it was carried out by a multinational coalition.

The headline is a complete lie and is a blatant use of your paper's liberal bias to influence public opnion.

[Arkady]

When Americans vote conservative, the press labels them "angry."

[Barset]

You speak for many of us, and eloquently.

[GailA]

We have 2 liberal pro-income taxers on in the Morning on WREC in Memphis...I REFUSE to listen to them, they have mindless patter and little useful info to impart.

Now the rest of the day I get to have CONSERVATIVE talk radio in the form of Dr Laura, Rush, Fleming (local) and Dave Ramsey. I listen via the net to Steve Gill in Nashville in the morning to keep informed of what the Tax and Stealers..er Spenders are doing.

[GailA]

I'm only High School educated. I must be one of those unwashed masses that need someone to do my thinking for me like the RATS and their pet biased media.

Horror of horrors I've even read the Tennessee State Budget and understood it was PORK laden with useless projects and wasteful spending.

[AD from SpringBay]

This is a new talking point and seems to be growing in importance, for the left. Since it's hard to put a genie back in the bottle, this is aimed at one or two things - keeping those who still believe TomDanPeter from crossing over, and finding some lawyerly way of limiting free speech in other venues (fed control of the Internet and tighter restrictions on talk radio). I think this is the beginning of a long assault on curtailing free speech.

Tolerance only leans to the left, don't you know?

[fporretto]

For other thoughts, please see:

Why Don't The Dogs Like It?

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://www.palaceofreason.com

[austinite]

I love this. First they sent a man to the moon and now a "mainstream" conservative bias?

Wow, thank God I'm sitting down BUMP.

[jmaroneps37]

Hey! E.J.,count me as another one that got away. I'm white and male BUT, I like girls and always have, I hold a doctoral degree, I've been a college professor,and now I make a decidedly upper middle class income.
I've said they before and I'll say it again: We are all living in exciting politically historical times. Right now, as we are watching, the rat media is losing it's grip on the flow of news. We are NOT there yet but the day is coming ( and very soon at that ) when the rat controlled media will no longer be able to decide what is and what is not news. Once their grip is broken we will be running the show as far as the eye can see.

[Reactionary]

It's an interesting problem, really, because liberals are prone to dismiss conservative points out of hand. And if it isn't a matter of dismissing conservative ideas as being the stuff of fantasy, they usually resort to name-calling. The problem, as I see it, is simple arrogance. They view themselves as enlightened, intelligent, caring souls who have nothing to learn from the rest of us. They impugn the intelligence and motives of their opponents routinely; they do not believe in the validity of other points of view that they disagree with.

They've simply become narrow bigots, unable to debate, to think, to take seriously other ideas that do not accord to their worldview. They're very sure of themselves, and that is why they are losing the battle of ideas and continue to underestimate us.

[HHFi]

Count me as yet another college-educated conservative with a magna cum laude degree who is endlessly irrritated by these arrogant liberals like Dionne, who just assume that anyone who disagrees with them must, I say "MUST," be a moron! Why, there's no other explanation!

I am a card-carrying member of a Skeptic group, and all I require of anyone who wants to convince me of something is that he provide hard factual evidence. Conservatives do that: for instance, when they argue against the usefulness of a government program, they cite the statistics showing how it has been counterproductive. Or when they argue against gun control, they provide numbers showing the crime rates rising after it is instituted. Or when they say a particular tax cut will benefit the economy, they offer not only economic theory to support it, but historical evidence that it has before. When liberals take the opposite position on these issues, all they offer is unthinking emotionalism and name-calling: "Tax cuts for the rich!" "You're a racist!" "Blah, blah, blah!" This is also why liberals always crash and burn on talk radio (and I work in syndicated radio, so I know).

And yet, they think they are the ones who are geniuses and assume that the rest of us are idiots. It reminds me of a dog thinking he must be smarter than humans, simply because a dog doesn't the brain power to realize his own limitations.

[Simmy]

And here is a poor college student who hopes to join this "educated elite" who is being "brainwashed" by the "conservative media" that has taken over the media. Nevermind that until Fox News and talk radio, the media was left leaning. Nevermind that two of the biggest liberal propaganda stations are taxpayer funded (PBS, NPR). And nevermind that most of the professors here and at other colleges, (those that give a politcal stance) are left leaning. We are just a bunch of poor students that need to be taught the right (liberal/left) way of thinking. </sarcasm>

Nice to see the liberals pissing in their pants as their hold on the media is losening. Listening to the liberal radio host on the call letter deficient station here in SF (KGO) and hearing all the hate, it is no wonder there is no successful liberal host in this nation.