"The media has a horrible liberal bias!" Says the conservative
"Who told you that?" I ask
"The media...Why?"
Even conservatives say no:
"Journalism today is very different from what it was 10 to 20 years ago. Today, op-ed pages are dominated by conservatives.... We have a tremendous amount of conservative opinion, but this creates a problem for those who are interested in a career in journalism after college.... If Bill Buckley were to come out of Yale today, nobody would pay much attention to him. He would not be that unusual...because there are probably hundreds of people with those ideas [and] they have already got syndicated columns."
-- Adam Myerson, editor of the Heritage Foundation's Policy Review (Newslink, 11/88)
Or do they mean neo-liberal?
In Diane Ravitch and Chester E. Finn Jr.'s report What do our 17-year olds know (1988) they found that 51% could correctly define laissez-faire, while only 43 could identify Joe Mcarthy, and only 32% knew that the civil war was in the last half of the 1800's. (Pp. 49, 69, 83)
Liberal by who's standards?
Basically the reason conservatives think that the newspapers are leftist is because they read it in a newspaper. They think TV is leftist because someone on TV said so. Just what is their definition of "leftist" anyway?
If you really want to find out, take a look at some people who hardly talk about anything other than the "liberal media" - neo-nazis. A for example, a review of a printed rant called the Redneck Manifesto talked about the "anti-right, anti-white [!] media establishment". Plenty of this kind of poo can be found at Hatewatch.
As long as their a single word in the newspapers that dissents from corporate orders, right-wing think tanks will accuse the media of having a leftist bias, and will call form "more balanced" (even more elitist and authoritarian!) coverage. For example, this is what PBS would be like if they had their way.
For example, Rush Limbaugh claims that the media is liberal - strange, considering all of the air time he gets. And considering that the Ghostwriter of his book was by that liberal Wall Street Journal's liberal editorial writer John Fund.
The same newspaper praised the 1981 deregulation of the Savings & Loan industry (6/29/81), saying, "The beauty of these solutions is that they are cheap because they depend on the market and not on the federal till." Well, give or take $150,000,000,000 anyway! (Source: FAIR)
And that liberal editor Robert Bartley has stated that in the U.S., "there aren't any poor people, just a few hermits or something like that." (Washington Post, 7/11/82)
Interesting...
Polls showed that in 1994, when Clinton's health care plan was described but not named, two-thirds of Americans favored it.
However two-thirds were against it once they were told it was "The Clinton Plan."
A random "liberal media" claim shows the state of conservative scholarship:
Here's part of a page I accidentally saved on my hard drive during research. At the time I didn't realize that it was a conservative page - beware the hazards of skim-reading! Anyway, you can sort of picture this as a "random" or "typical" conservative argument: (Elitist wordiness of the "style over substance" vien has been underlined)
"If one were to conduct a search on Lexis-Nexis on the terms "rightwing" and "leftwing", one would first find that the former outnumbers the latter by a incredibly large ratio."
(Our conservative friend overlooked one detail - for "solid proof" one has to ACTUALLY DO THE EXPERIMENT. It's not good enough to say "If one were to do an extensive survey, one would find that all conservatives are morons".)
"If one were to conduct the query on both terms in conjunction with the terms "extremist" or "radical", one would find almostno references to negative terms in conjunction with "leftwing" and a plethera of references to negative terms in conjunction with "rightwing.""
*IF* again. Actually, this part could actually be true - but only because leftists don't shoot people over issues like abortion, or bomb government buildings, or collect weapons for doomsday. And as for "radical", it's not a negative term - it's simply a description.
"This is solid proof of a leftist bias,"
If that's solid proof, what would an actual study be? Rock-hard, fully erect proof from Gawd [TM]?
"but more importantly, this is solid proof of conditioning through repetitive association."
The argument has nothing to do with conditioning - though any adman could provide "solid proof: of conditioning through repetitive association", this conservative isn't scholarly enough to bother. He is needlessly wordy though - which counts as "solid proof" to most conservatives!
We go on:
"For instance, the media constantly refers to the "radical Christian right," often with images of abortion clinic bombings and other negative images."
Who bombs abortion clinics? The fluffy Taoist center?
"But when is the last time you heard "radical Jewish left?""
Just before the Holocaust.
"In fact, there is a "radical Jewish left." All one need do is examine the CEO's, [!] managers, directors, writers, directors, etc_of the leftwing media in this country, "
This is called a circular argument. Why do you think the media is liberal? Because it's owners are liberal? Why do you think it's owners are liberal? Because they own the liberal media? Why do you think the media is liberal? etc. Also, no evidence for the media being Jewish - all I know on this subject is that during the holocaust reports were usually small print in the back pages of newspapers. Strange thing for a "Jewish brainwashing machine" to do...
"as well as the leaders and financiers of the major left wing organizations such as the ACLU, Brookings Institution, People for the America Way, Gun Control Inc. etc_.many of them are "radical Jewish leftists.""
The same technique as before - no examples, no evidence, just "if you looked, you would see"... See also my Pundits page - how many "radical Jewish leftists" can be found there?
"did you ever hear Ted Kaczinsky called a "leftwing extremist" (which he is) by the press? (a press which in a twisted sort of way, probably views Kaczinsky in an heroic light!)."
See my page: Myth: The unibomber is leftist. Notice the utter lack of examples. No explanation on how a terrorist could be portrayed heroically - except for his own personal interpretation, which says a lot about his idea of heroism...
"To call Kaczinsky a "leftwing extremist" would reinforce negative connotations and images associated with the term "left" and "liberal"
...But it would be proved bullshit by the first page or so of his manifesto! The media isn't *THAT* bad!
"...and the leftist media would never allow this."
Anyone who is making any sort of attempt to be believable would never allow this.
"They will however, allow all variations of negative associations with the terms "right", "conservative", and "Christian"."
Examples? "All variations" - let's see, I haven't seen Christians being called "draft-dodgers" or "pot-smokers", or "eco-terrorists" or "bleeding-hearts" or "traitors" etc...
"These are but two pitiful examples"
Pitiful, yes. Examples, no.
"...of the constant leftist drumbeat pounding negative associations into the psyche of the American people via the most powerful medium of communication in the history of Man_ television. Day by day, words are twisted into new meanings."
Which explains why socialism and communism are dirty words, and why liberals are changing their name to "progressives". For a quick reminder of REAL word twisting, see my word page.
"People find themselves with antagonistic sentiments that they cannot logically justify. One often hears them say, "I just don't know, he just seems be so mean spirited." They are unaware of the means by which those negative sentiments are seeded in thier [sic] minds."
Of course, siding with the overdog, telling the starving to fend for themselves, supporting the bombing and invasion of third world countries like Vietnam and Grenada, telling women to "quit whining", talking about "stupid and unskilled Mexicans", agreeing with the Klan on every issue, calling a thirteen-year-old girl a bitch because he disagrees with her parents*, and endlessly blaming the victim for everything doesn't make people consider right-wingers "mean spirited" (as if nobody uses harsher terms than that!) - brainwashing from the Jewish media does it! Gimme a break.
*Rush Limbaugh and Chelsea Clinton