Our "Liberal" Media

[Click image to enlarge.]

Palinesque whining about media bias against conservatives notwithstanding, nothing could be further from the truth; nor has it been for a hell of a long time. (Too damn long, if you ask me, given that "facts have a well-known liberal bias.") I should be glad, though -- and I am --that "neutral" coverage accounts for around half.

Media Rare

I'm not the only one who sees that "liberal" news networks will never have the audience that Fox "news" does. Even a guy with a large national audience agrees:

...you'll never have a liberal equivalent to Fox News that has anything like the same level of success. Conservatives believe that the mainstream news is fundamentally corrupt and untrustworthy. They want a fully closed information ecosystem in which every piece of data they consume is filtered through the perspective of the conservative movement. Very, very few liberals want that. They want their liberal opinion, but they also want straight news, or at the very least news that isn't overtly propagandistic like on Fox. MSNBC has slightly right-of-center programming in the morning with Joe Scarborough, straight news throughout the day, then liberal opinion at night.

It's a battle liberals will always lose. And whereas that's great for Glenn and Bill and Sean and Sarah and Mike, it's really bad news for our country. Because not only is Fox "news" not only not a news organization but a coordinated propaganda organ, it's much more: it's the kingmaker for Republican candidates. Half of them are literally paid employees: Palin, Gingrich, Huckabee. Others, per instructions from Sarah herself, have decided to campaign exclusively through appearances on Fox, knowing they'll never be challenged. It's become the pattern for virtually all the teabagger candidates: Angle, Paul, O'Donnell, and more.

So why is that a bad thing? It hardly takes thought to answer: these candidates are bought and paid for by Fox "news." The candidates owe everything to Rupert Murdoch, one of the richest and most blatantly partisan, agenda-driven men on the planet. In a most obvious sense, this man will have a significant part of our government fully beholden to him, dependent on him, afraid of him; with the power of the unspoken threat to turn his propaganda against them any time they disagree with him. This is much more than being beholden to money; it's potentially total control of politicians by the man who literally produces, edits, and shapes all the information consumed by conservatives. It's a hell of a lot more than pursestrings: it's total influence over how these politicians will be perceived. I'd say that pretty much puts the teabagger candidates in Rupert's pocket.

Who but a teabagger would consider that a good thing? Who but a teabagger would not recognize and be repelled by this perversion of democracy, this unprecedented political influence?

And who but a teabagger would so willingly let themselves be used in such a way?

Illiberal Media

This article makes an excellent -- if obvious -- point. Here's a portion:

What if, in 2006, at Yearly Kos, the first annual convention of liberal bloggers and their readers, organizers shelled out $100,000 for former Vice President Al Gore to address attendees? And what if the same organizers booked as an opening-night speaker a fringe, radical-left conspiracy theorist who'd spent the previous year pushing the thoroughly debunked claim that some Bush White administration insiders played a role in, and even planned, the 9-11 attacks. What if the speaker (also proudly anti-Semitic) received a standing ovation from the liberal Yearly Kos crowd?

Given that backdrop, and given the fact that the 9-11 Truther nut had for weeks bragged about his chance to share the stage with Gore, do you think the press would have demanded that Gore justify his association with a hateful conference that embraced a 9-11 Truther? Do you think pundits would have universally mocked and ridiculed Gore's judgment while condemning the Yearly Kos convention as being a hothouse of left-wing hate? Do you think Gore's appearance would have become a thing?

(In case you don't feel like reading the linked article, its point is the ways in which the media failed to cover the recent Tea Party Convention.)

The media have become like the Congressional Democrats. They've allowed a false narrative to drive debate and are either unable (in the case of the Ds) or unwilling (in the case of our vaunted media, those defenders of truth and balance) to set it right. In each case, they've let dishonest characterizations stand unchallenged. When it's in Congress, we get paralysis. When it's the media, that let themselves be talked into no longer doing their jobs, lest they be decried as "liberal" (because, to question and to demand facts, to call out liars is, y'know, elitist and liberal; and gods help us if reporters get all truthy on us), we get teabags.

[While we're at it, I wonder when some media person will ask Kit Bond or any of the other RWS™ types who are hyperventilating about trying terrorists in US courts, under US law, about this case.] [On the other hand, why bother: there are already so many examples of the stupidity of the argument that you'd think it would have died by now. But not here. Not as long as Foxbaggers are around and the rest of the media are AWOL.]

Liberal Media

I've always thought the idea that the media are excessively "liberal" was mostly foolish. Lazy and stupid, credulous and superficial? Definitely. Especially television. In newspapers it's still possible to find in-depth coverage of complicated and unsexy issues. Which is why our coffee table is overflowing with the residua of the three papers to which we subscribe. The New York Times, despite occasional misfires, remains a bastion of broad and deep and thorough coverage.

I also subscribe to the famous Colbert quote that "reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Anyhow, in the above context I find this graphic interesting:

These were the days leading up to the votes on the stimulus bill. And lookie there: who has the most balanced appearances?

Not that any of it was useful. I'd have much preferred to hear real discussions of the pros and cons of tax cuts and infrastructure spending, by people who actually study those things. What we heard was congresspeople -- by far mostly Republicans -- spouting the usual party tropes with no real elucidation.

Meanwhile, I sense a trend. For some reason the television "news" media seem to think now is the time to show their lack of bias, and to do so by giving preference to the right wing. It's taking that old idea that "balance" requires giving equal time to opposite opinions, even if one is demonstrably wrong, and carrying it over the cliff.

That's the liberal media for ya. Rant on, Bill. It's working.