Media control
I've been thinking--as I often do--about the myth of the so-called "liberal media," a myth that is so well-established in our society that no one really even debates it anymore or offers a counter-argument, except Eric Alterman maybe. An incident like the Dan Rather-Bush National Guard-memo nonsense is, I'm sure, somehow is indicative to conservatives about how the media is liberal and is out to sabotage conservatives everywhere. However, if the media is so liberal, wouldn't you think that Dan Rather would've kept his job, and the whole memo story would've been swept under the rug? If it would've involved John Kerry and not George Bush, would we have even heard anything about it after the first week (more accurately, would the rest of the media have kept analyzing paper and print type and bent over backwards to help John Kerry or would they have been pounding home the substance of the story regardless of whether or not it was true or there was a faked memo)? FoxNews lies and distorts all the time; where are the outcries, the investigations, the firings?
What I want to get at here is that, while the idea of the "liberal media" is prevalent, and you will often hear commentators and regular people talk about it, no one is talking about the possibility of the media being conservative. I mean, yeah, heads would explode if this were found to be true, and conservatives would be stripped of one of their key "we're just victims!" attacks that have been so succesful. I say, given the fact that FoxNews and MSNBC invented themselves to attack Bill Clinton and cover his sexual dalliances 24/7, that all of the networks went after every tiny little thing about Al Gore in 2000 ("Al Gore invented the internet" and other things he may or may not have said that are, at worst, verbal miscues--which ironically Bush is the undisputed king of and everyone thinks is so charming) while no one bothered to investigate Bush's National Guard or DUI records; that the Washington Post--that bastion of "liberal media"--has never offered a retraction for its continued chase of the Whitewater investigation that ultimately exonerated the Clintons; that the Washington Times, a staunchly conservative newspaper, is run by the Reverend Moon, a convicted tax evader and multiple felon, the leader of the Unification church cult, a self-proclaimed Messiah (something he has proclaimed before some "misled" Congressmen), and one of the stalwarts of the current conservative movement and loyal friend of the Bush family, and the Times has been running at a $50 million dollar a year deficit the last 25 years (who's subsidizing this effort?), and no one other than a few obscure websites ever mentions these sordid details that would be enough to cut the feet out from under anyone; that the major news outlets rah-rahed this nation into the Iraq war without once questioning the rationale and the evidence; that talk radio is completely conservative; that ABC is owned by Disney (disclaimer: Disney did donate more money to Democratic campaigns this election cycle than Republican), CBS is owned by Viacom, NBC is owned by General Electric--all three are major corporations that received generous tax incentives when the big tax plan was passed a few years back and are corporations that are interested in making profits, something which any conservative will tell you is antithetical to the beliefs of the evil unpatriotic Communist liberals who want to give all your money away and want to destroy God-fearing, pro-American corporations (so why would such corporations be liberal?); that George W. Bush, despite poll numbers that are bottoming out and a continual shameless political power grab that has killed the economy, killed tens of thousands of people, killed our reputation around the world, killed our Constitution and made him a dictator while marginalizing , and who is always given a pass and is still referred to in the media as a popular wartime President, a man of peace, a visionary, a great humanitarian, the savior of the world, a nice guy to have a beer with--I say, given all this and more, the media is conservative. But who dares mention it?
At most, I can give the media the benefit of the doubt and say they are corporate as opposed to conservative or liberal. Corporate, in that they are concerned with making money, and they know how to make the money--by shilling for conservative causes and giving the conservative angle equal play no matter if they are wrong (for example, interviewing anyone who says global warming is a myth), riding the wave of Rush Limbaugh and other talking heads who have big audiences and big book deals, and never ever substantially going after the Bush family on anything but always attacking Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, or Ted Kennedy.
I think that, at one point, the media could be considered "liberal," in the sense that they were advocates of the common person over the tyranny of corporations and government. Newspapers basically made their names in the early part of this century by going after corporations and moguls who were abusing workers and taking advantage of people. Necessary work, but, of course, this goes against conservatives who want corporations to be unaccountable because that means less wages to pay and less money to regulate things which means a stronger bottom line. The media as "liberal" culminated in the 1970s with the Watergate investigation and the downfall of Richard Nixon. When Reagan came, it was gone, and things like the Iran Contra scandal, our excursions into Central America, went largely unreported (Iran-Contra, while a big news item, should have been bigger than Watergate and taken down the entire administration), and Reagan was treated with kid gloves as a doddering old grandfatherly sage incapable of wrongdoing.
Conservatives control everything now. Quite an accomplishment, I say, if there's this vast liberal conspiracy in the media, as conservatives would have you believe.
What I want to get at here is that, while the idea of the "liberal media" is prevalent, and you will often hear commentators and regular people talk about it, no one is talking about the possibility of the media being conservative. I mean, yeah, heads would explode if this were found to be true, and conservatives would be stripped of one of their key "we're just victims!" attacks that have been so succesful. I say, given the fact that FoxNews and MSNBC invented themselves to attack Bill Clinton and cover his sexual dalliances 24/7, that all of the networks went after every tiny little thing about Al Gore in 2000 ("Al Gore invented the internet" and other things he may or may not have said that are, at worst, verbal miscues--which ironically Bush is the undisputed king of and everyone thinks is so charming) while no one bothered to investigate Bush's National Guard or DUI records; that the Washington Post--that bastion of "liberal media"--has never offered a retraction for its continued chase of the Whitewater investigation that ultimately exonerated the Clintons; that the Washington Times, a staunchly conservative newspaper, is run by the Reverend Moon, a convicted tax evader and multiple felon, the leader of the Unification church cult, a self-proclaimed Messiah (something he has proclaimed before some "misled" Congressmen), and one of the stalwarts of the current conservative movement and loyal friend of the Bush family, and the Times has been running at a $50 million dollar a year deficit the last 25 years (who's subsidizing this effort?), and no one other than a few obscure websites ever mentions these sordid details that would be enough to cut the feet out from under anyone; that the major news outlets rah-rahed this nation into the Iraq war without once questioning the rationale and the evidence; that talk radio is completely conservative; that ABC is owned by Disney (disclaimer: Disney did donate more money to Democratic campaigns this election cycle than Republican), CBS is owned by Viacom, NBC is owned by General Electric--all three are major corporations that received generous tax incentives when the big tax plan was passed a few years back and are corporations that are interested in making profits, something which any conservative will tell you is antithetical to the beliefs of the evil unpatriotic Communist liberals who want to give all your money away and want to destroy God-fearing, pro-American corporations (so why would such corporations be liberal?); that George W. Bush, despite poll numbers that are bottoming out and a continual shameless political power grab that has killed the economy, killed tens of thousands of people, killed our reputation around the world, killed our Constitution and made him a dictator while marginalizing , and who is always given a pass and is still referred to in the media as a popular wartime President, a man of peace, a visionary, a great humanitarian, the savior of the world, a nice guy to have a beer with--I say, given all this and more, the media is conservative. But who dares mention it?
At most, I can give the media the benefit of the doubt and say they are corporate as opposed to conservative or liberal. Corporate, in that they are concerned with making money, and they know how to make the money--by shilling for conservative causes and giving the conservative angle equal play no matter if they are wrong (for example, interviewing anyone who says global warming is a myth), riding the wave of Rush Limbaugh and other talking heads who have big audiences and big book deals, and never ever substantially going after the Bush family on anything but always attacking Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, or Ted Kennedy.
I think that, at one point, the media could be considered "liberal," in the sense that they were advocates of the common person over the tyranny of corporations and government. Newspapers basically made their names in the early part of this century by going after corporations and moguls who were abusing workers and taking advantage of people. Necessary work, but, of course, this goes against conservatives who want corporations to be unaccountable because that means less wages to pay and less money to regulate things which means a stronger bottom line. The media as "liberal" culminated in the 1970s with the Watergate investigation and the downfall of Richard Nixon. When Reagan came, it was gone, and things like the Iran Contra scandal, our excursions into Central America, went largely unreported (Iran-Contra, while a big news item, should have been bigger than Watergate and taken down the entire administration), and Reagan was treated with kid gloves as a doddering old grandfatherly sage incapable of wrongdoing.
Conservatives control everything now. Quite an accomplishment, I say, if there's this vast liberal conspiracy in the media, as conservatives would have you believe.
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