Killing the myth of "liberal media"

[anti_shrub]

I'm about to jump into the age old liberal media debate with someone and I'd like to have all my ducks in a row before I get too deep. Anyone have some good links that dispell the liberal media myth?

[Eradicate_Tyranny]

1. Myth or Reality?

A survey two years ago revealed 9 out of 10 journalists voted Democrat...

[Keithpotkin]

2. but what about their bosses?

and...they dont want to get fired, do they?

[Eradicate_Tyranny]

9. Foxes Guarding the Henhouse?

Keithpotkin writes:

"and...they dont want to get fired, do they?"

Who's going to "fire" them, the same managers who hired the
9 out of 10?

[lazarus]

3. Simplicity itself

The following argument is guaranteed to win. I've been using it against freepers on Usenet for a few weeks now. Guaranteed to drive them insane.

Them: Some mention of "liberal media".

Response from you: Liberal media? Prove it.

Remember, they're making the positive assertion, therefore the burden of proof is on them. Heck, don't even ask for proof, just ask for evidence.

Here's the only response I've managed to get besides "You're just an idiot if you can't see the obvious."

(Note, this is verbatim, pure copy and paste)

The media's reluctance to report on Clinton's scandle-filled administration.

The media's insistance on fabricating Bush scandals.

Compare: Matthew Sheppard and the gay "hate crime" in Arkansas.

Compare: Abortion v pro-life story coverage.

Dan Rather's inability to hide his contempt for George Bush (election 2000, 9-11, the recent blackout, etc).

Look up: Dowdification

Compare: The treatment of Charles Heston and the liberal of your choice on the Today Show.

John Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times's, memo warning reporters to keep their liberal politics out of the news page.

And on and on it goes....

[DieboldMustDie]

4. Try...

What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News by Eric Alterman

Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth by Joe Conason

The Myth of the Liberal Media: An Edward Herman Reader

[anti_shrub]

5. I'm getting the argument that CNN

is some liberal utopian paradise where nothing conservative sees the light of day. I guess it is compared to Fox, but I don't get why CNN still is seen as liberal when they cover for Bush as much as anyone else.

[lazarus]

6. It's the big lie

Just ask them for proof. They can't show it. There isn't any. And they get angry as hell when you ask. It's fun.

[zbdent]

7. Goad them into the "You name one lib media figure, I'll name two"

bit.

Have your list ready.

They'll run out as soon as they get past Carville, Begala, Maureen Dowd and Colmes.

They'll probably try Michael Moore, point out that he's not on a news channel, but toss in your two anyway.

Point out that Bill Maher has been neutered, but give your two anyway.

[Fixated]

8. ...

Do you have the Franken book?

Here's our argument: There are two kinds of media - standard, fact-based media, which the right claims is biased (ask for proof, mention the election, the Wellstone funeral distortions, etc.). Then there is the right-wing media, which no one can claim isn't conservative - talk radio, Fox News, etc. How exactly is liberal derived from that?

[Mel]

10. you could also come at

them with this angle. If they think the media is liberal then are they for bringing back the 'fairness doctrine' they should be. Seeing as they want Fair&Balanced, right?
I think this is a fair question if they really believed the media was liberal they'd be screaming for the fairness doctrine, but they aren't reason they know it's a lie and their boy Rush the mush mouth told them it was liberal seeing as he calls the 'fairness doctrine' 'hush rush' just goes to show you how people don't do any critical thinking. People hear the lie enough and just believe it.

http://www.fair.org/extra/9411/limbaugh-fcc.html
November/December 1994
The "Hush Rush" Hoax:
Limbaugh on the Fairness Doctrine

By Jeff Cohen

<snip> "I, Rush Limbaugh, the poster boy of free speech, am being gang muzzled."

The broadcaster was crying censorship (Limbaugh Letter, 10/93) over congressional efforts in 1993 to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine -- which he labeled "The Hush Rush Bill," "The Get Limbaugh Act" and "The Rush Elimination Act of 1993." Limbaugh's daily on-air crusade generated thousands of calls to Washington, and helped derail congressional action. As usual, Limbaugh's followers were mobilized through misinformation and deception.

The Fairness Doctrine -- in operation from 1949 until abolished in 1987 by Ronald Reagan's deregulation-oriented Federal Communications Commission -- calls on broadcasters, as a condition of getting their licenses from the FCC, to cover some controversial issues in their community, and to do so by offering some balancing views.
Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine can hardly be a "Hush Rush" plan aimed at silencing him, since it was broadly and actively supported on Capitol Hill well before anyone in Washington had ever heard of Limbaugh. In 1987 (when he was still the host of a local show in Sacramento), a bill to inscribe the Fairness Doctrine in federal law passed the House by 3 to 1, and the Senate by nearly 2 to 1, but it was vetoed by President Ronald Reagan. Voting for the bill were such "commie-libs" as Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).</snip>



If anything the media is corporate who owns the media.
start http://www.takebackthemedia.com/owners.html

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm
<snip>We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.

Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: "fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." </snip>

The reich wingers better learn from history for they are damn sure doomed to repeat it and I think we are full-tilt-boogie all up in it.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[eablair3]

11. Don't let them shape the debate before it even starts

to "jump into a debate over whether the media is liberal or conservative" .... is to lose before you even begin. You've let them shape and frame the debate.

The best approach, imo, is to say that the media (mass media is what I assume you are talking about) can't be pigeon-holed by those two terms. What do those two terms mean anyway? But, this is how the right-wing shapes the debate on this. They give you two choices: liberal or conservative. Only two choices. I don't know if you saw the recent psychiatric study about these people, where it concluded that they like to see things in "black and white", right and wrong, and "evil doers" and good people. It's the same here with "liberal and conservative."

When someone starts this with me, I always say that the media is neither. Rather, it's almost ALL a corporate or business media. This media will promote the ideas of the people who own it and control it. Check out Chomsky and Herman's book "Manufacturing Consent." This only makes logical sense. The big corporations that own the big media are generally going to report those things that help their interests. This only makes sense, and people usually agree with it.

Anybody who has ever worked in a sizable organization (and that's quite a few people) knows what happens if you take positions or speak out with political positions that are not the same as your bosses or that happen to be adverse to the organization (or corporation). Anybody who has worked for a sizable corporation knows what happens to those who speak out, or protest in political marches. Editors and publishers know this, too.

The mass media chooses those editors and publishers who reflect and who understand and who will do what the big bosses and owners want. If they don't do it enough, or put "undesirable stories in too much, then they get replaced with another person who is more "right-thinking."

As a result, mass media promotes the business interests as opposed to working peoples' interests.

So, to get sucked into a debate of liberal vs conservative is to lose before you begin. That's what the business interests and media want you to debate because it keeps the focus off the real debate, all while putting forth the illusion that there are competing interests and that the press if "free". Try changing the premise of the debate at the outset and saying "it's not really a liberal vs conservative thing, ... rather, it's a big business/corporate agenda vs. a working peoples ' interest." There are countless examples of this everyday in the media, and it's much easier to persuade people, imho. Many stories of corporate corruption are not told while we have to see on tv kobe bryant and peterson, or celebrity gossip, etc. The big media don't generally want to report on the corporate payoffs, corporate welfare, etc.

[LanternWaste]

12. Ben Bagdikian's "The Media Monopoly"

Probably came across this topic a little too late to be of any help in the short run, but this is a good opportunity to list what I think is the best and major argument against the liberal media myth.

In 1987 Ben Bagdikian wrote a book called, "The Media Monopoly". The central thesis of his work is that the media owes allegiance not to either party, but to the market economy. It's overiding goal, like that of any other business is to maximize its profits.

The book has gone through numerous printing editions and in the copy I own (seventh printing published in '96), Bagdikian penned a new forward in which he summed up that all the major predictions he had made in the prior editions (fewer owners, fewer outlets, non-news corporations (G.E., Disney, Westinghouse,etc.) slowly accumulating media control) has, in deed, come to pass.

It's a wonderful book and it appears to have been 15 years ahead of its time. I honestly think anyone who has even the slightest interest in the trendy "liberal media" arguments should get a copy of this book, read it carefully.

I have shut down EVERY argument re: the liberal media within five minutes since reading this book. It strips away a lot of the flavorful rhetoric used these days and looks only at the fundamental question...what is every major media's ultimate goal: to make money.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

13. Liberal media?

Liberal media, what liberal media? Are you talking about National Public Radio or Public TV? From my standpoint thats just about it for liberal media on a national level. NBC comes close sometimes, but still is kind of whitebread. Sorry, Mr. Brokaw.

I don't see what these "conservatively"-minded people have to be all up-in-arms about? Their agenda, for the most part, rules the airwaves right now. Look at the most prominent media icons today, pretty much conservative. Who can you really tap as an influential liberal personality? Alan Combs? He seems more like Sean Hannity's whipping boy. James Carville/Paul Begala? Far too associated with Clinton to have their own voice. Chris Matthews? Forget it, he's a loose cannon (funny as hell, though).

I feel that the real basis of the liberal-media backlash is that these vocal few are still pissed from chafing under Clinton for eight years and want to dispense their share of vitrol in a friendly envrion. But what can you say in response? How 'bout:

1) You guys hold pretty much all of congress.
2) " " got your guy elected, despite the popular vote.
3) And, y'all got Ann Coulter, who puts a beautiful face on all the trash she spews.

So enjoy! These are your salad days, guys and dolls.

Love and kisses,

FOAMDAD

[western mass]

14. www.fair.org

loads of real data, not just rhetoric:

http://www.fair.org/reports/index.html