WHY AREN'T THERE MORE LIBERALS ON TV?

Thought I'd use this thread to link today's column from Safire of the New York Times on his view of the negative consequences to competition of ideas resulting from the concentration of media ownership... http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/20/opinion/20SAFI.html

From your citation:

Whether the media is in the hands of 5 owners or 5,000 owners will not remove the noted conflict of interest. The media will always have the media's interests at heart.

Yes, the media is interested in the media's interest, what business doesn't? The tradition of journalism in this country, however, has been the safeguarding of the public safety and the shoring up of the individual's rights. It was after all newspapers who championed the efforts of unions to organize, who demanded that Social Security, Workman's Compensation, and Unemployment Insurance be instituted. Without the aid of newspaper editorials the American Civil Rights Movement would have died on the vine.
I am not kidding myself, I know the history of Hearst and others who made news (and maybe war) in order to sell newspapers, and there were plenty of newspapers who opposed the liberal ideas listed above, but there was a conversation amongst the newspapers that informed the public and a public who thirsted for news.
Today, most people get their news from television. (I'm sure I can find a link to a study or studies backing up that claim.) The people get sound bites and talking heads and think they are informed. This world is a far more complex place than it was even fifty years ago, yet we are apparently trying to understand it with overly simplistic statements, spin and just plain mush. (I purposely left out the horsehockey.)
Perhaps one of our conservative friends would like to list the conservative ideals that have been forwarded by the free press and that also protect the public safety and the individual's rights. Liberals like the Bill of Rights, we especially like the the First, Sixth and Fourteenth amendments. I know the right loves the Second amendment but what the next favorite?
Joe Nation

Joe Nation asks:



The Supreme Court?

BTW, I get a majority of my news from NPR - expanded reports directly to the source in many cases.

Liberals aren't popular on TV because the national media are controlled by the lunatic right-wing of the Republican party.[/i]

Here's some satire on CNN's buildup to the Iraq war:

"Showdown Lowdown" with Aaron Brown

Liberal "Hard Commentary" doesn't sell. The reason there is no Rush Limbaugh-of-the-Left is that insufficient numbers of folks will tune in to justify the placement of the ad dollars needed to keep the show on the air ... as has been proven numerous times, and which Donahue is currently reconfirming. PBS is an oasis of "Big L" liberalism because it is unconstrained by market reality. It suckles at the public teat rather than working for its own living.

Alleging a "Conservative Media Bias" is disingenuous at best. A quote from the jacket of Bernard Goldberg's book Bias* is illuminating:


The book is a NYT and both Amazon and Barnes & Noble Best Seller, and I believe has just been released in paperback, or soon will be ... making more affordable for liberals, I suppose. Not too surprisingly, the book has received little accolade, or even acknowledgement or mention, from broadcast journalists.

Some reviewer's comments:
"Bias should be taken seriously .... Mr. Goldberg has done real homework ... he asks questions that are worth asking" - NYT

"This insider's account of Mr. Goldberg's career at CBS is filled with so many stories of repulsive elitism and prejudice on the part of his peers that it elevates Bias to Must-Read Status. His case is airtight" - WSJ

"The allegation of liberal bias in the media is not a new one. However, in this book the allegation is made not by a Conservative but by a reporter for CBS News - an old fashioned liberal who has seen the bias first hand. Mr. Goldberg has written a courageous book and told a story that needed to be told." - W.J. Bennet

"Bias is a fearless and vitally important book. In exposing the bottomless intellectual corruption within his own industry, Bernard Goldberg does what so many in the mainstream press only pretend to do: he tells the truth without regard to personal consequences" Cooleagues will surely accuse Goldberg of treachery, and worse. But it is he, not they, who upholds journalism's finest traditions" - H. Stein

"Bernie Goldberg is dead on. The astonishing distrust of the news media is rooted in the daily clash of worldviews between reporters and their readers and viewers." - U.S. News & World Report

Those who support the notion of "Conservative Media Bias" are required to support the proposition by themselves; the proposition fails to stand on its own. This no doubt is a source of embarrassment and dismay among the editorial elite who are forced to resort to subterfuge as opposed to direct marketing. Liberals and others inconvenienced by the $28 cover price of the hardbound edition may find the book at their local library, or search out the either recently or soon-to-be-released paperback. Consult the current edition of Books In Print


* Bias, by Bernard Goldberg, Regnery Publishing, Washington DC, 2001. ISBN 0-89526-190-1



timber

Still believe the liberal bias despite a few describing it and trying to prove it is an overstatement. If there is any bias, it is a moderate bias and this is particularly evident in the major network anchorman's delivery of the news. I don't agree that they overtly supporting a liberal agenda and don't agree that any perceived subliminal message is getting through to those who are indendent voters and certainly not conservatives which will change their poltical bent. What conservatives complain about is that there's hasn't been any overt support for conservatism with the news anchors. The commentators are a different story. Because Donahue was so successful in the 60's and 70's was not because of a liberal political message but the liberalism of his choice of subject matter. Now he's populated his shows with equal time for both liberals and conservatives and I don't see if that's going to work. To expect a Rush Limbaugh of the left is just not realistic.

Howard Stern has been the liberal left moderator that the right was put up in the past as the equal of Rush Limbaugh. Other than both personalities deal in trash and comedial digress, there is no comparison!

The point that needs to be made is that so many (at least in my location) carry the Rush message into the work place and social arena as if it was truth and the American way. Whenever they make a Rush point, it is easy to show them the falacy of their areguement - but the position is still adhered to.

I guess I won't change and so can not expect it of others. I will say at least that some of the old Rush adherents during the Bill Clinton days do see the dopiness of GWB.

Bernard Goldberg is an excellent example of how to make tons of money exploiting the gullibility and pocketbooks of conservatives looking for documentation, albeit absurd, liberal bias in mainstream media. While he may pine (Joe Pine?) for the days of yore when reporters were essentially uneducated hacks putting out the news over cigars and cheap whisky, the profession moved past him like a Corvette passing a Hudson. He is a welcome guest on all the rightwing talking head radio and t.v. shows where he belongs.

Don't be bashful, dys ... tell us how you really feel
Nice piece of rhetoric, but in what way does it address the concerns raised by Goldberg's book ... you've offered an assessment or an opinion, not a counter argument. Disagreeing with a proposition in no way invalidates or rebuts that position. Ridicule and contempt are not arguments, they are but explicit concession that no valid argument comes to mind.

If possible, provide contraindicating evidence, prefferably mainstream in nature. Which of Golberg's contentions are unsupported, which of his references are false, what has he invented or subverted? On what basis do you reject his conclusions?



timber

yikes did i over-opine? um well yeah i did not unlike Mr Goldberg;
from www.fair.org
Bias, by former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg, is long on name-calling and vitriol, but short on substance. "Delusional," "hypocrites," "Lilliputians"-- these are just a few of the words Goldberg uses to describe journalists in general, and his old CBS colleagues in particular. He quips that if CBS News were a prison, many of its employees would be Dan Rather's "bitches."

It's ironic that Goldberg's book has come out during a time when right-wing media watchdogs-- who can find a socialist tilt in the weather report-- are offering virtually nothing but praise for mainstream journalists' coverage since Sept. 11.

Goldberg marshals little documentation for his claim that the news is packed with the views of liberal advocacy groups and rarely includes conservative opinions. In reality, year after year, right-leaning think tanks are cited in far more broadcast and print reports than either centrist or left-leaning think tanks. A survey by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting of Nightline's guest list found that for every representative of a labor union invited to debate economic issues, there were seven representatives of corporations.

If, as Goldberg argues, there's a media tilt toward Democrats, then why have Republicans received a majority of newspaper endorsements in all but two presidential elections since 1932?

From what I'm able to discern FAIR attacks, but fails to refute Goldberg.

As for FAIR's impartiality, I'll let their own webpages make my contention:

"FAIR acts almost alone as an advocate of Democratic Journalism. I cannot even conceive of what we would do without it."
-Robert W. McChesney

"Extra!(The print publication of FAIR) is the best media watch publication in the country; I'd be as confused as everyone else without it."
-Abbie Hoffman

I would just like to congratulate the collective on its wonderful achievements and hope that many others will be encouraged to join in this widely important work."
-Noam Chomsky


http://www.fair.org/donate.html
When Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias" reopened the debate over the supposed liberal bias in the news media, FAIR issued a prompt critique of his work. Thanks in part to years of FAIR's work, pundits with access to the mainstream debate are beginning to acknowledge that the real bias in media is against the left.

http://www.fair.org/extra/0205/power_sources.html
While these figures ought to dispel the persistent notion that network news has a liberal or pro-Democratic bias, they do not in themselves necessarily prove a conservative or Republican bias. Rather, they may reflect the networks' definition of news that prioritizes the actions and opinions of the executive branch. Members of the Bush administration (and Clinton administration, for the pre-inauguration period in January), including the president, vice president, cabinet members and official spokespeople, made up 17 percent of all U.S. sources and 62 percent of all partisan sources. When these are set aside, the remaining partisan sources showed a rough parity between the two major parties, with 51 percent Republicans, 48 percent Democrats and 2 percent third-party members or independents appearing as sources.


In short, I don't think FAIR is.



timber

I enjoyed Goldberg's book, and agree with its premise. That written, I was uncomfortable with how much of the text seemed focused on his personal plight since "outing" media bias in his WSJ editorial. It smacked a bit of tit-for-tat, of getting even with those he believes have wronged him.

If I'm right in that assessment, it does not change the truth or lack of truth in his underlying message, but whatever the facts, I thought it reduced his credibility as messenger.

Tress, I agree Goldberg generalized and personalized, and pressed a personal agenda. Yet he brought focus and personal knowledge to a contentious issue. I do not point to his book as "The Answer" by any means. In such regard, no single work is likely to fulfill "The Requirement". I note however, there is no similar General Circulation, Best-Selling Book espousing and substantiating a countering leftist position.



timber

Timber - Agreed.

so what you both seem to be saying is that there is some question as to his credibility but you like his premise?

I can't speak for Timber, but that is not what I wrote.

Well, I don't deny he presses an agenda. As to credibility, while I may or may not condone his approach or may or may agree with his assertions, I find no factual problem with such directly verifiable evidence as he presents ... he's got the memos, the notes, and the tapes. There may well be other documented, verifiable evidence supporting a counter view, but if extant that evidence to my knowledge has not been widely disclosed. He raise some valid questons, and supports his answers to those questions with substantial evidence. He puts up a good argument. I haven't heard a better one, but I'd be willing to embrace a better argument if one came along.



timber