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Off The Rail - Jan 12, 2006 - Printable Version
- Liberal Media Bias - Dismantling the Myth
by Mike Bohling
Liberal Media Bias. You’re all familiar with it. You’ve probably heard it used to describe the media and news outlets in America hundreds, if not thousands of times. People have heard it so many times that they begin to believe it. Right wing political pundits regularly regurgitate the term, and their followers swallow it hook, line, and sinker without ever questioning it’s authenticity. I invite all who believe in the Left Wing Media Conspiracy to take an honest, unbiased look at the facts that I am about to present, as well as my opinions on the subject. Let’s see if we can put this Liberal Media Bias idea to bed, once and for all.
First, Some Startling Numbers
According to the latest Harris Poll of 1,961 U.S. adults surveyed online between December 8 and 14, 2005…….
Forty-one percent (41%) of U.S. adults believe that Saddam Hussein had "strong links to Al Qaeda."
Twenty-two percent (22%) of adults believe that Saddam Hussein "helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the United States on September 11."
Twenty-six percent (26%) of adults believe that Iraq "had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded."
Twenty-four percent (24%) of all adults believe that "several of the hijackers who attacked the United States on September 11 were Iraqis."
Now I ask you, if people were being unduly influenced by the Liberally Biased Media, why would so many believe the above absurdities? It’s scary to think that these people vote, but it explains a lot. This evidence makes it clear that a Conservatively Biased Media, not a Liberal one, has influenced a disturbingly large portion of Americans.
Hollywood
There is no arguing that Hollywood leans decidedly to the left. It is also a fact that Hollywood not in the News business. Hollywood is in the Entertainment business. A money making scheme in which people pay to watch their favorite celebrities act out fantasies conjured up by writers, directors, and producers. Hollywood is fantasyland, and it has no bearing whatsoever on reporting the state of world or national affairs. The Liberal Media Bias argument doesn’t apply here, but let’s touch on it anyway.
The TV show “Will and Grace” is a perfect example of controversial programming. For every homophobe boycotting the show’s sponsors, there are 50 consumers who watch the show and patronize those same sponsors. If those numbers were reversed, “Will and Grace” would not exist. It’s simple economics. Supply and Demand. It’s not a homosexual agenda, not a subversive attempt to desensitize the public to alternate lifestyles. It’s cash generating entertainment, and that is what Hollywood does for a living. When consumers are willing to lay down their money for right leaning entertainment, I predict that Hollywood will turn decidedly to the right.
Television News
Television and Newspapers form what has become known as the Corporate Media. Below is a glimpse of the membership affiliations of the Boards of Directors for the top five TV News outlets in the U.S.
(Taken from Common Dreams News Center, www.commondreams.org ).
- News Corp (Fox): British Airways, Rothschild Investments
- GE (NBC): Anheuser-Busch, Avon, Bechtel, Chevron/Texaco, Coca-Cola, Dell, GM, Home Depot, Kellogg, J.P. Morgan, Microsoft, Motorola, Procter & Gamble
- Disney (ABC): Boeing, Northwest Airlines, Clorox, Estee Lauder, FedEx, Gillette, Halliburton, Kmart, McKesson, Staples, Yahoo
- Viacom (CBS): American Express, Consolidated Edison, Oracle, Lafarge North America
- AOL-Time Warner (CNN): Citigroup, Estee Lauder, Colgate-Palmolive, Hilton
Combined with the Boards of Directors from the top five Newspapers (affiliations listed below), the total of 118 Board Members also sit on the Boards of Directors of 288 other National and International Corporations. Eight out of the ten media giants share common memberships on boards of directors with each other.
With a few exceptions, these affiliation lists read like a who’s who list of Republican corporate sponsors. The Corporate Media serves only it’s own self interests, and those interests are to not divulge information harmful to the reputations of Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Chevron/Texaco, Halliburton, Kmart, or any Politician who subsidizes their business interests. So, the news that we get from them is Laci Peterson, Michael Jackson, Shark Attacks, the missing girl in Aruba, and the War on Christmas. (I’ve yet to see Fox News even mention the Downing Street Memos or the Abramoff scandal).
How can we trust that these outlets will be fair and objective in reporting the news if the news is counterproductive to their corporate interests?
There is much evidence to support the claim of conservative media manipulation in television news. Jeff Gannon, the White House corespondent planted by the illegitimate “Talon News” to throw softball questions to Press Secretary Scott McClellan during briefings is a good example of media abuse by conservatives, as is the White House disseminating pro-Bush videos made to look like TV newscasts. Suppressing the Downing Street Memo story for over a month is another example of the Mainstream Media downplaying stories critical of the President. Very little coverage of the war in Iraq appears on television news, except when it’s being defended, and civilian casualties due to the conflict are ignored altogether. White phosphorus and depleted uranium weapons being used in combat areas populated by civilians are yet another story that you won’t see covered by the broadcast news outlets.
Then again, there’s a good chance that 30% of you have never heard of Jeff Gannon, the Downing Street Memos, or Depleted Uranium. I guess if the news isn’t reported, it doesn’t exist, right?
The TV News has lost it’s edge. There once was a time, if a President made an absurd statement like “We have to fight the terrorists in Iraq, where they are making their stand" a shrewd anchorman would have pointed out the inconvenient fact that the terrorists were not there before he invaded. I think those days are gone forever.
TV News has become to Journalism what Televangilists are to Religion, and they’re both in close competition with what the World Wrestling Federation is to Sports.
One organization stands alone as the only major news outlet on television that is not beholden to Corporate America. PBS was all over the secret meetings between Vice President Cheney and the oil industry, the corruption in Congress, neglect of wounded veterans returning from Iraq, Pentagon cost overruns, and the manipulation of intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq. All of which are/were news items conspicuously ignored by the mainstream media. PBS’s independent reporting too often uncovers the news that powerful people want to keep hidden, and for that reason the Republican administration is attempting to cut taxpayer funding for the organization.
Newspapers
Below is the membership affiliations of the Boards of Directors for the top five Newspaper outlets in the U.S.
- Knight-Ridder: Adobe Systems, Echelon, H&R Block, Kimberly-Clark, Starwood Hotels
- The Tribune (Chicago & LA Times): 3M, Allstate, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Kraft, McDonalds, Pepsi, Quaker Oats, Shering Plough, Wells Fargo
- New York Times: Caryle Group, Eli Lilly, Ford, Johnson and Johnson, Hallmark, Lehman Brothers, Staples, Pepsi
- Washington Post: Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, Dun & Bradstreet, Gillette, G.E. Investments, J.P. Morgan, Moody's
- Gannett: AP, Lockheed-Martin, Continental Airlines, Goldman Sachs, Prudential, Target, Pepsi
As you can see, the Boards of Directors from the Newspaper industry serve many of the same masters as the TV News folks. I am of the opinion that Newspapers are only marginally more credible than television when it comes to reporting the news. The biggest difference being that, other than editorials, the news stories are presented with more of a “nuts & bolts” approach, and less opinion than what is seen on television. That’s not to say that Newspapers are any less guilty suppressing stories that harm their corporate interests, but I don’t notice as much spin injected into the stories.
Again, I would like to give some examples of manipulation. The New York Times held on to the NSA Domestic Spying story for over a year before publishing it, an issue that would have loomed large over the Presidential elections of 2004. The Downing Street Memos made Front Page Headlines in Europe for a full month before appearing in American Newspapers, where it was buried on page three. News coverage propagated by the White House during the run up to the Iraq War was virtually uncontested, and often inflated by the likes of Judith Miller and Robert Novak, while dissenting viewpoints (of which there were many) were virtually shut out of the media.
Exploitation of the Newspapers by the White House in retribution against Joe Wilson, and the whole Plamegate affair is the most glaring example of abuse that has come to light in recent years, but for some reason, I doubt it will be the last.
One thing I’ve noticed is that Conservatives regularly blast the Newspapers as being Liberal because they print the daily body count of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. This of course is nonsense. The body count is nothing more than a fact, printed in black and white. Facts are facts. They can not be construed as liberal, conservative, or as opinions, they are just facts. If the mainstream media would give us more facts and fewer assumptions in the news, we would all be better off for it.
Radio
Not much to say about radio. According to the Pew Research Center 30 percent of Americans now say that their primary news source is talk radio, of which 90 percent is dominated by programming that leans to the right or far right. These statistics help explain the results of the Harris poll you just read.
The Internet
The World Wide Web is the last bastion of equal footing between right and left. There are still a few independent newspapers in publication, and we still (for the time being) have PBS, but they are both quickly being overwhelmed and gobbled up by the Corporate Media. The Internet offers both sides of the news in detail that cannot be found on television or in the newspapers. Unlike the Corporate Media, news is never suppressed on the Internet, and anyone who is willing to explore all points of view is able to come to their own conclusions by absorbing both liberal and conservative talking points.
The “real” news is out there, but you have to put a little effort into finding it. In the mean time, take what you see on TV, read in the papers, or hear on the radio with a grain of salt, because even when they do tell the truth, it is highly unlikely that you’re getting the whole truth.
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