Posted on 11/16/2002 11:22:57 AM PST by Pokey78
CONSERVATIVES COMPLAIN constantly (and rightly) about the liberal bias of the major media. What they don't realize, however, is that this bias probably hurts liberals more than it helps them. The Republican victory this fall is a case in point.
One way media bias hurts liberals is by giving them a false sense of security. There is a tendency for those in public office to judge their performance on the basis of day-to-day press coverage. If a congressman or senator gets good press, he assumes he is doing a good job.
But if the media share the lawmaker's political philosophy, then there is a danger that he may be misled. He may think he is popular with voters, when in fact they are not happy with him at all. He is only getting positive press coverage because the media like what he stands for.
Good examples of this are abortion, gun control, and campaign finance reform. A survey of the pressroom in any major newspaper, newsweekly, or television network will show overwhelming support for abortion on demand, restrictive gun control, and severe limits on campaign contributions. Any candidate espousing such views will generally get positive press coverage for them.
The problem is that the nation is split on these issues, in contrast to the monolithic view of the press. In the case of gun control, in particular, Democrats have had to backtrack from their hardline anti-gun position in recent years, lest they lose the last few rural members of their party in Congress.
Consequently, press bias is a two-edged sword. It irritates the heck out of conservatives, but at the same time induces a sense of complacency among liberals that can be exploited. The latter are, in effect, urged farther to the left by the media than is politically prudent, setting the stage for conservative upsets.
Another way liberal bias hurts liberals is that it causes reporters to underplay, overlook, and often completely ignore important political trends.
A good example of this is religion. Most reporters, in my observation, are agnostics. Those who are religious at all usually belong to mainline churches and denominations. Very, very few would consider themselves fundamentalists, or orthodox, within whatever religion they belong to.
And yet fundamentalism and the return to orthodoxy have been the most important religious trends of the last three decades. All the mainline Protestant denominations are losing members, while conservative Christian churches continue to grow. Among Jews as well, conservative and orthodox congregations have grown steadily at the expense of the reformed majority. And, of course, we are all too well aware that fundamentalism among Muslims has become the Western world's dominant foreign policy problem.
The point is that if a newspaper has not one person on its staff who is a religious conservative, how is that paper going to have any clue about what is going on among those who share such beliefs? A good reporter, to be sure, can cover any issue well, given time and resources. But what is going to trigger his editor's interest in covering the deeply religious when neither has much knowledge of that community in the first place?
The irony is that those in the media understand this fact perfectly well when it comes to race, ethnicity, and gender. They are obsessed with increasing the number of blacks, Latinos, and women in the media, and the rationale is the need to better cover stories of interest to these groups. Yet the same logic holds for many other groups in society, including religious fundamentalists and political conservatives, for whom no similar outreach effort is ever pursued.
The result is a blind spot for the media. They miss a lot of what is going on in society because they just don't see it. Newsrooms today are echo chambers, where reporters and editors hear the same liberal conventional wisdom over and over again.
All of this hurts Democrats far more than they know. To the extent that they pay attention to their media coverage, they are cut off from the mainstream of society without even realizing it, implicitly believing that Peoria thinks like the New York Times. Indeed, since the Times has become a virtual newsletter for the Democratic party, it surely deserves some of the blame for the Democrats' 25-year trend from dominant political party to what looks like long-term minority status.
Therefore, conservatives should stop worrying so much about liberal media bias. It exists and probably always will. Conservatives are not wrong to remind themselves that if it were up to the major media, not one of them would hold office anywhere in America. But if I'm correct about the effects of liberal bias, conservatives probably owe at least a silent nod of thanks to the media for their current majority.
Bruce Bartlett is a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis. He writes a nationally syndicated column for Creators Syndicate.
There's a whole lotta misunderestimatin' going on out there.....
Excellent analysis!
I think a great example of this was the 1988 election. I have always felt that the liberal press killed Michael Dukakis with kindness. He never realized how unpopular his stand on the Pledge of Allegiance and the release of Willy Horton would prove to be because the liberal press never told him.
Also, there's the "cry wolf" factor.
After decades and decades of media liberals predicting that any Repub victory will GUARANTEE that old people will be starved and thrown out of their homes, blacks lynched in the streets, and women enslaved in sweatshops, blah blah blah, then none of it ever happens, eventually even the dumbest of voters may have that golden "hey wait a minute!" epiphany.
Just this week a local, relatively conservative radio talk show did a program on media bias. One of the guests was a professor from the journalism department of the university here in town. She was genuinely puzzled about the whole issue of media bias. She kept saying that no professional journalist would ever go after a story deliberately intending to present a biased view.
While I would disagree that no professional journalist would do that--I think they often do--but most often I believe the problem is exactly this 'blind spot'. Journalists simply cannot imagine that there is another viewpoint.
At the risk of being nosy, I'm curious about what caused your and your husband's political development. Was it just the gradual 'growing up' associated with the assumption of adult responsibility or was a particular event or person involved?
You got that right. Bruce doesn't get it anymore than the DNC. The GOP's Secret Weapon in the next election will be the Democratic Party nominee, Al Gore.
All of this hurts Democrats far more than they know. To the extent that they pay attention to their media coverage, they are cut off from the mainstream of society without even realizing it, implicitly believing that Peoria thinks like the New York Times. Indeed, since the Times has become a virtual newsletter for the Democratic party, it surely deserves some of the blame for the Democrats' 25-year trend from dominant political party to what looks like long-term minority status.
Excellent column. Good post.
Absolutely.
There have been MANY examples of this in the past. The liberal press was caught by surprise by the popularity of Oliver North at the Iran-Contra hearings. It also initially missed the public revulsion over the Wellstone funeral-rally.
Similarly, it showed the Democrats' age-old derision of Republican concern about the military and national defense to be incredibly naive and downright dangerous.
Or:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.