Posted on 04/25/2004 1:11:20 PM PDT by Maria S
Dear Dan, Peter and Tom,
I know you've been wondering where viewers like me have gone.
I've read some of the theories put forth in recent studies, and I need to set the record straight. We aren't too busy. We haven't stopped watching nightly news.
No, most of us - people you would label as conservatives - have stopped watching because you don't present our perspective anymore. It wasn't that long ago that we welcomed you into our homes every evening, and, whether the news was negative (the downing of PanAm 103) or positive (the success of a space shuttle mission), we felt united in the experience. As Americans of different political persuasions, we grieved or celebrated together.
Of course, there were controversial issues even then (the abortion debate, for instance), but we still felt represented. It seemed to us that you strove for objectivity. Even though we knew you favored the more liberal side of the issue, you covered both perspectives. We appreciated that and respected you for it.
But then came the election of 2000 and the Florida recount, and, from the perspective of people like me, everything changed. Your stories led with the liberal point of view: "The Gore vote is 'undercounted' in Florida." "The U.S. Supreme Court 'gives' the election to George W. Bush." If our view was presented at all, it came from an interview with a conservative wacko who made us look foolish and out of touch.
No longer was your political commentary reserved for the end of newscasts and clearly marked as commentary; it permeated the hard news itself - a raised eyebrow here, a grimace there.
Stories we thought were important (the Democratic effort to throw out the votes of our soldiers stationed overseas) were either left out or buried.
So, to get the whole news, we found other sources: The Fox News Channel, The Drudge Report on the Internet, talk radio.
Then came 9/11, a tragedy that seemed to bring us together again. In the days following that horrible attack, we were not Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives; we were just Americans. We all resolved to comfort the survivors and punish the perpetrators. We watched you again in the war in Afghanistan. Though you still presented a liberal slant, you strove for fairness, and, more importantly, you seemed to celebrate the success of America, even if it came under a conservative administration.
But the war in Iraq and a presidential election year have changed all of that. In fact, to people like me, the network news bias seems far worse than it was in the aftermath of the Florida recount.
Your disdain for this president and his administration is no longer veiled, which threatens to further distance you from conservative viewers.
More importantly, it seems to distance you from your own liberal values.
You are now in the awkward position of supporting an angry white male connected to the intelligence community over an articulate black female who spent most of her professional life in education.
You give more air time to haters of an American president (at home and abroad) than you do to the haters of America who perpetrated 9/11 and who, even now, are planning further attacks on this country. You say you support our troops, but ask the troops if they feel supported. We have countless polls testing the popularity of the president.
Let's do one to gauge the trustworthiness of network news among our nation's bravest.
I'm not asking you to shelve your objectivity. Errors, even conservative errors, need to be reported. Just show some balance. The greatest enemy of America is not President Bush, and, however imperfectly, his administration is working night and day to keep this nation free, including people like you who often make it look bad.
In short, Dan, Peter and Tom, we haven't left you; you've left us. Come back to us and we'll come back to you.
Mike Bellah teaches English at Amarillo College.
Bingo... the left media bias became appallingly apparent once we found their own primary sources of information (Rush, Internet, Fox) where we could fill in what mainstream media left out or distorted. We found the accurate mirror of society ourselves and then could see the liberal media for the warped carnival mirror it was.
And the more they warp the image to suit their own agenda the more Americans walk away from them in droves.
No we didnt.
It seemed to us that you strove for objectivity.
No it didnt.
Even though we knew you favored the more liberal side of the issue, you covered both perspectives.
No they didnt
We appreciated that and respected you for it.
No we didnt.
Which newscasts was this guy watching? Even before the dust from the WTC had settled on 9/11/01, the networks were all but calling President Bush a coward because he didn't go immediatlely rushing back to Washington, even though we still had no clue as to what other targets the terrorists had selected. Peter, Dan and Tom were carping nonstop about how Bush had "failed his first test of leadership." It was only after it became abundantly clear that the American people were absolutely NOT GOING TO TOLERATE the normal petty ideological media sniping at the President that the networks backed off the Bush-bashing and pretended to support him for a short while.
Once President Bush made the decision to invade Afghanistan, all we heard from the media was nothing but carping and bitching and negativity. We heard all about how the mighty Taliban was going to humiliate our armed forces, how the mujahadeen had routed the Soviet Union and we couldn't possibly do better. This was the first time we heard the mention of the media's most prized word for a military action initiated by a Republican administration, quagmire. Once we rolled up Afghanistan like a cheap carpet and sent the Taliban fleeing into the hills, the media promptly switched to pimping al-Jazeera-style accounts of "atrocities" commited by our troops, and started telling us all about how we hadn't accomplished anything, how the Taliban hadn't been routed but had merely engaged in a "strategic retreat."
I could go on and on, but I'd be here for days. Simply put, the mainstream media has been against this administration and against this nation since the first WTC tower was hit.
Back to the letter, I can see the Network chiefs saying, no, don't read that one, read this one instead:
Dear Tom/Dan/Peter: Why were the Networks so easy on the Scrub at the last press conference? Really, you're just too nice and polite.
When even college English teachers start to notice the bias, you've got to question the sanity of any intelligent human being who believes network news.
Groan...the guy's name is "Mike". He's a "man". Why do people like you, supposedly "conservative" and "anti-PC" insist on calling men "persons"?
Gee, that John Wayne character, now there was a real "person"!
And so are you!
Doing a radio show that gave political opinions that were not quotes in a regular newscast was made illegal in 1969. In typical double speak they called the regulation that made them illegal the "Fairness Doctrine"
Reagan appointed people to the FCC to over turn the fairness Doctrine. By 1987 the FCC had a majority of Reagan appointees who did overturn the fairness doctrine.
The Roosevelt administration passed a regulation in 1943 making it illegal for stations to do editorials. They reagan appointees overturned that rules as well.
The first communications act of 1928 and its revision in 1934 both made vugar talk on the air illegal. It would take an act of congress to overturn that.
It is interesting to note that Howard Stern has not been punished or fined a penny. It was Clear Channel who was fined for what Stearn said. Howard can say the F word as many times as he wants and he will not be charged or fined at all. But the licensee of the frequencies Howard broadcasts on, can lose their licenses to broadcast or be finded up to $27,000 for each instance.
The people who own the stations do not own the right to broadcast. They only lease it from the government promising to serve the public interest, convienence, and necessity and obey the Commications act and the Regulations adopted by the FCC.
There are Regulations making the use of the F word a violation of the Commuicantions act. This violation can be punished by fineing the station or revoking its license to broadcast. If Powel wanted to he could revoke the license of every station that has carried Stearn.
You can bet if Powell did no other station would allow him on the air for even a second.
If Howie wants to talk dirty, he needs to get the law changed so he can do it legally. Some may think bank robbery should be legal, but until it is, they will put you in jail if you rob one.
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