Amen. And talk radio has been a great boost to the spread of information, and freedom, too.
Amen. And talk radio has been a great boost to the spread of information, and freedom, too.From http://www.libertysoft.com/liberty/features/85bartlett.html:
by Bruce Bartlett
Newspaper reporters and television newsreaders tell you what to think, not what happened. But that's changing.
A while back, I was watching C-SPAN and saw a dinner sponsored by the Media Research Center “honoring” the most biased press coverage during the 1980s. It certainly was amusing to see so many journalists make fools of themselves, but I felt that the “awards” were painted with a bit too broad a brush. As someone who has observed the media closely for many years and is well aware of its overwhelmingly left-liberal orientation, I would like to add my perspective to the question of bias.
For many years, the people who presented the news, primarily in newspapers, were simply reporters. They went to events and told us what we would have seen and heard if we were there. It was not a particularly glamorous profession, it didn’t pay well, and many of its practitioners were not especially well educated.
These early “journalists” made no pretense of objectivity. In many cases, they worked for papers aligned with political parties or owned by publishers with definite points of view. If they didn’t submit stories consistent with their masters’ perspectives, they would either find their articles killed or they would have to find new employment.
This sort of bias in press coverage, however, was quite different than today. For one thing, it was displayed openly and proudly, not hidden behind a cloak of “objectivity.” For another, press competition was far more intense than it is today, with every major city having several independent newspapers. Everyone knew where each paper stood, politically and ideologically, and they read the one that most closely reflected their views. If they wanted a different view — and many did, with multiple newspaper purchases being common — they knew where to find it.
In short, the situation was somewhat like what one finds in courtrooms. Strong advocates did the best they could to present their side of an issue — and only their side — while an impartial group of jurors sought to find the truth within the evidence presented. Although there were no judges to ensure that the rules were obeyed, competition did a good job of taking their place. A paper that consistently got the facts wrong would cease to be an effective advocate for whatever position it represented, for its competitors ensured that any mistakes were well publicized.
Enter the Box
The advent of television changed all this. Suddenly, reporters went from being anonymous and faceless to being performers, rewarded more for their ability to present the news than report it. This was not immediately apparent because many of the early stars of television news — like Edward R. Murrow and David Brinkley — were competent journalists of the old school. But as they faded from the scene, they were replaced by those whose only skill was in reading copy written for them. Such people have nothing in common with those whose job it is to actually find and report the news. They are simply performers not unlike Hollywood actors, who at least have the virtue of not pretending to write the lines or think up the characters they portray on screen.
Cutting the link between those who actually report the news and those who merely present it created an enormous problem for journalism. Because those who “reported” the news to most people now had no meaningful connection to the actual events being reported, a basis of legitimacy was lost. Henceforth, “journalism” was on a slippery slope between reality and make-believe.
This transition from true reporting to Hollywood-style line-reciting was clouded by an offsetting effect: television allowed citizens to actually see events as they happened, oftentimes live. Thus in the beginning, television newscasters tended to limit themselves to describing actual events. But soon it became obvious that skillful editing could transform almost any set of pictures so as to present whatever image was desired.
With the volume of video images increasing exponentially, more and more power was vested in the hands of television producers and editors. It is doubtful than many consciously told themselves that the editorial decisions they made were for the purpose of having a political effect, but the result was the same. Severe time constraints — the major networks still devote just 30 minutes to the evening news, just as they did in the days before video cameras, satellite hookups and fiber optic cable — and the pressure to give high-priced news “anchors” maximum face time, inevitably meant that snippets of pictures had to replace more thorough coverage of events. Like newspaper photographs, they illustrated stories, rather than being the story.
The result of this evolution was to cut the linkage between being a reporter and being a journalist. Now people could simply sit behind a camera and call themselves “journalists” without ever having to dirty their hands going to crime scenes, war zones or boring political rallies. In the process, they lost their connection to the real world.
Compounding the problem is the fact that television “journalism” became extremely lucrative. Top tier news anchors make millions of dollars per year and even second tier television journalists can break into seven figures. Such rewards soon attracted those who were still trained and committed to serious reporting. This transition was facilitated by the proliferation of talk shows, like The McLaughlin Group, featuring reporters heretofore confined to the print medium. Not pretending to be news programs in the traditional sense, these new media encouraged — indeed forced — serious journalists, previously constrained by the need to base their work on hard reporting and facts, to let loose and voice opinions on every conceivable issue.
Thus the blurring of the line between reporting and journalism was complete. Instead of hiding their political opinions, even serious reporters were encouraged to glorify them. And as more and more of their incomes came from television appearances and attendant revenues, such as books and speaking engagements, they had less and less incentive to adhere to norms of accuracy and objectivity.
This would be less of a problem if today’s news media faced the same competition that existed in earlier times. Unfortunately, economics has led to the closing of vast numbers of newspapers. There are but a handful of cities left with as many as two major newspapers and only one — New York — with as many as three. At the turn of the century, even small towns had several papers and big cities had a dozen or more. Consequently, most papers have monopolies in their markets, which inevitably leads to less effort being made to get stories first and get them right. It is not surprising that some of the worst papers in the U.S. are some of the most profitable.
Nowadays, many of the nation’s most well known “journalists” are as far removed from actual reporting as a chef is from the farm where the food he prepares was grown. And their product bears as much resemblance to reportage as a meal in a fine restaurant does from unprocessed meat and grain. In short, there is a linkage, but a distant one.One can go down the list of people who once had been serious reporters, but now make most of their income from blathering on TV about things they often know nothing about. Indeed, ignorance is bliss. It is harder to be provocative and present predictable views if one has firsthand knowledge of what one is talking about.
Nevertheless, there are still reporters out there. These are people whose bylines appear in the paper frequently, but are generally unknown even to those who read them daily. They do not appear on TV because they are ill-at-ease expressing a personal viewpoint.
This brings me back to the Media Research Center awards. It appeared to me as if the Center made no effort to distinguish between those journalists who openly taint their reporting with personal views and those who essentially are paid to spout off. It seems wrong to me to criticize someone like Eleanor Clift for making absurdly biased comments as if she is really still a reporter for Newsweek. (I can’t remember the last time I saw her byline in the magazine she allegedly works for.) She is the TV equivalent of a newspaper editorial writer or columnist — someone expected to reflect a point of view, however silly.
Unsanctioned Bias
On the other hand, I think I was even more appalled than the Media Research people at the growing number of people maintaining that they are in fact reporters who have publicly made the most unbelievably biased comments without sanction. That is inexcusable. It is a far worse offense, in my book, to present a standard news story in a biased way than to voice the same view on The McLaughlin Group. There should be a Chinese Wall between reporting and opinion on TV as there is (at least in principle) between the two in newspapers.
This gets at one of the real problems with TV news. It really cannot separate the two. Nor does it have the ability to present contrary views. TV time is too precious to allow the equivalent of letters to the editor or commentators with a differing perspective. That is why TV newscasts need to make a much greater effort to ensure objectivity and accuracy than newspapers and magazines. Yet ironically, the latter do a far better job than the former.
I would rather rely on the left-liberal Washington Post than the similarly biased broadcasts on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN. For one thing, the Post occasionally allows other voices on its pages, unlike the networks. Also, the volume of news is far greater in the Post, so that some useful information still leaks through. And I think there is a greater level of professionalism among the print media, including the Post, than even at the best TV news operation.
I think it is inevitable that almost everyone who works in journalism today will reflect a left-liberal viewpoint to some degree, at least among those covering national affairs. But unlike most conservatives, I think this is for institutional reasons, not a conscious strategy by a few devout liberals. It is hard to explain why this is the case. Clearly it has much to do with the increasing distance between those who present the news and those who actually cover it. It also has to do with the increasingly corporate ownership of most newspapers and TV stations. Their owners don’t have an ax to grind, they just want to make money. And as long as they do, they really don’t care what the so-called journalists in their employ say or do.
Thus there is a lack of accountability. Newspapers, often monopolies with owners far removed from the city in which they are published, are very profitable. Even those publishers with a conservative point of view, such as Rupert Murdoch or Conrad Black, make little effort to rock the boat as far as news coverage is concerned. They content themselves with running a few conservative editorials, knowing that these have almost no impact — least of all on their own reporters. Thus The Wall Street Journal maintains a reputation as a free market paper solely because of its editorial page, even though most of the reporters for the paper remain conventionally liberal, a fact reflected daily in its news coverage, especially from Washington.
Furthermore, these publishers often own so many media properties, including TV stations and even networks, that they make almost no effort to reflect their views. Even Murdoch, who supposedly established the Fox News Channel as a conservative alternative, has never had the nerve to say that this channel actually is conservative, nor has he made any effort to inject a conservative viewpoint into any of his over-the-air outlets. Instead, the Fox News Channel advertises itself as being objective and unbiased. Presumably this represents a move toward the right from the totally left-liberal perspective of the other news networks. (CNN is not called the “Clinton News Network” for nothing.)
I do not mean this as criticism of Rupert Murdoch. Rather, it shows how ingrained the institutional constraints are. If he were to advertise the Fox News Channel as a conservative alternative, he would have difficulty getting on a single cable system. This is not so much because cable system owners are themselves leftists, but because they don’t want to rock the boat. They know that left-liberals are far more likely to complain about any hint of conservatism on the air than conservatives are to complain about liberalism. Partly this is due to their nature and partly because conservatives are so demoralized about pervasive bias that they don’t even try to do anything about it anymore.
Hope on the Horizon
But there is a ray of hope from new media. These include talk radio, the Internet and outlets such as C-SPAN. Talk radio is overwhelmingly conservative, owing mainly to the success of Rush Limbaugh. He came along at a time when AM radio was virtually dead, eclipsed by FM , which delivers music in much higher quality. When the Reagan Administration abolished the “fairness doctrine,” Limbaugh recognized that there was an opportunity for talk radio with a sharp conservative edge. It dominates the AM airwaves and conservatives, denied a more conventional voice for their views, have responded overwhelmingly. High listenership has led to new advertising and high profits for station owners — more than enough to compensate for any misgivings they might have over presenting views generally considered “outside the mainstream.”
The Internet has, of course, spawned a massive growth in web sites devoted to news of every viewpoint. Not only are there any number of openly conservative news and commentary sites, but even those run by major media, such as CNN.com and MSNBC.com, now released from the constraints impose by a 30-minute news broadcast, provide a much more balanced presentation of the news than their on-air counterparts. In short, the same constraints that have limited bias in newspapers now limit bias on the Web.
The Internet also provides direct access to news sources in a way that ordinary consumers have seldom had before. If someone wants to know what Steve Forbes or Gary Bauer or Alan Keyes had to say, they are not limited to the possibly biased presentation of it by a leftist reporter, they can log on to their web site and see for themselves. (Of course, the greatest left-liberal bias is often simply to ignore libertarian and conservative views, which may be worse than misrepresenting them.)
This access to the raw material of news is also the reason why C-SPAN is in effect a conservative voice. While resolutely nonpartisan, C-SPAN makes a strenuous effort to present all sides. So a conservative or libertarian, accustomed to seeing no reflection of his views on television, seeing it even some of the time is an enormous improvement. (Also, unlike many other television outlets, C-SPAN treats its conservative and libertarian guests with respect, rather than derision.) C-SPAN is also an admirable throw-back to what news reporting used to be before it became journalism — just the facts, straightforward, unvarnished and unconstrained by time or space limitations.
The Media Research Center is right to call attention to egregious examples of leftist bias, but those who are doing the most to counter it are talk radio hosts, those who are making the Internet a pervasive fact of life, and Brian Lamb (who started C-SPAN). Given that the ratings and circulation of the broadcasts and newspapers dominated by left-liberal views are dropping like rocks, while those with a conservative and libertarian content are rising like rockets, I am inclined to think that the problem is taking care of itself. Sooner of later some nonpolitical businessmen will get the idea of replacing Dan Rather and his ideological twins on the other networks, with a real reporter who also happens to be conservative or libertarian. I think ratings would shoot through the roof.
Liberty, April 2000, © Copyright 2000, Liberty Foundation