From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri Feb 14 2003 - 18:13:16 MST
Ron writes
> amara@amara.com writes:
> > Why is the current narrative of the U.S. media in Bush's
> > back pocket, if policies are forged that affects everyone's
> > (U.S. citizen's and others) lives? Who is paying for that
> > narrative?
Of course it's not, and that this is quite a distortion.
One sees on American TV a variety of viewpoints. Until
recently, it is true, one could only find liberally-biased
shows, but the Fox TV News channel offers (a sole, I believe)
alternative.
On radio, the situation is almost entirely reversed. More
stations carry conservative or right-wing shows, although
the conservative's monopoly of the radio waves is not nearly
so complete as the left domination of TV. I find that radio
may at this point in history cater more to conservatism
because this is their moment, so to speak. The long, rational,
coherent sentences of people articulating a comprehensive
point of view find their outlet in radio; TV is the medium
of images and emotion, and one-liners.
Sixty years ago it was the reverse. Socialism was unopposed
intellectually, and radio talk-shows extolling socialism and
articulating the shortcomings of capitalism would have played
very well.
Ron says,
> It has been shown that the vast majority of the main stream media
> voted for Gore and Clinton before him. It has also been shown that time
> after time when folks have the opportunity to chose between a conservative
> and a liberal talk show host they will go for the conservative.
> Given that the majority (estimated as slightly over 90%) of the main
> stream media voted for Bush's opponent it is hard to see how the media is in
> Bush's back pocket.
But what is the *reason* for the leftist control of traditional
media?
It has nothing to do with anyone paying for a certain narrative,
as Amara suggests.
I think instead that it is two-fold. First, journalists are often
people idealists who became journalists in the first place because
they wanted to change the world. Their idealism prompted them to
adopt collectivism for the sake of the world. Persons more
narrowly focused on their own self-interest or on the interests
of people closer to them tend more towards economic exchanges
with others, and so have a tendency to form the entrepreneurial
classes.
But a second powerful affliction is at work. And that, simply put,
is the decline of a notion of objectivity in academia. Were you
to bring up to Peter Arnett, Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, Larry
King, Roger Mudd, Tom Brokaw, Katie Couric, or Peter Jennings their
bias and lack of objectivity, they'd simply reply that objectivity
is an illusion. They'd point out that fashionable intellectuals
have dismissed objectivity from consideration long ago.
My demand that a responsible and professional journalist deliver
the news in a manner that makes it nearly impossible to divine
his or her political leanings would evoke much mirth.
"Not only is what you are asking impossible," they'd reply, "but
(just between you and me) I have a moral duty to try to fight
the good fight against poverty and injustice."
But the key to getting their behavior to change---or since that's
going to be impossible, to affect the next generation of reporters
---is to emphasize that objectivity is *not* impossible.
I am reading a terrific book called "The Five Points" which
describes the great slum of New York in the 19th century, on
which the movie "The Gangs of New York" is based. The author
has had innumerable opportunities to betray his political
ideologies, but has stoutly avoided doing so. He has striven
for utter objectivity and even handedness. Even about the
terrible Irish famine, he explores what was going on at the
lowest levels, debunks common falsehoods, and shows that in
general there were few saints or sinners.
So maybe he must be a conservative after all? I mean, so
many liberals such as the above seem to consider it their
duty to be biased.
Lee
P.S. For further reading on this subject, for those open-minded
enough to try, I suggest "Coloring the News", by William McGowan
or "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg.
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