"The Liberal Media"

[Angst]

The buzz is kind of over now, but a few months ago American Conservatives were all up in arms about the presumed discourse control of "the Liberal media", where the assumed Liberal majority of the American media were brainwashers, controlling the stream of information for the interests of Liberal policies. Or something like that; that should be the general idea.

I question whether this was ever the case and whether it was a buzzphrase used by politicians or thinkers when their views were counterargued by arguments supported by some article. As in "it's all discourse control anyways within the Liberal media, I don't have to care about this article".

I've personally mostly stumbled upon American Conservative musings in the media. Especially with the massive influence Fox News has, I think the statement is kind of hypocritical. Perhaps it was a response to when people pointed out the collaborative idiocy and prominence of Fox News; glorifying it as a golden bastion against evil socialism?

One last thought: Many of the American articles I've stumbled upon, that are neutral, thorough and reasonable while completely disagreeable by me, have at times been mocked by some Conservatives as Liberal propaganda. If the difference between mainstream neutral (so-called Liberal) media and Conservative media is the degree of extremism and bad journalism, I weep for your country.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I've seen liberal media and I've seen conservative media. Biases do abound, even in discussion between private citizens.

On the other hand, I think the "race is too close to call!" and "it bleeds it leads!" bias is much more prevalent and important.

My bigger problem is with false equality in media. If the general consensus is that computers run on electrical power and some nutter says they are actually run by invisible satanic gnomes then it will be treated as a 'controversy.' It should just be ignored.

 

[LucyDuke]

That wasn't a brief thing, it's been a rallying cry for years. It's roughly as ridiculous as you think.

Ziggy has the best answer, listen to Ziggy.

 

[Angst]

Waiting for Ziggy.

 

[Patroklos]

If you rant about Fox News and at the same time claim there is no "liberal media" as well, then you are just disingenuous.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

If you rant about Fox News and at the same time claim there is no "liberal media" as well, then you are just disingenuous.

Its not that there is no "liberal media", its that the "media", itself, is by no means "liberal".

 

[Cutlass]

There is no liberal media in the US. There are liberal people in the media, but there is no major news organization that as a whole is spreading a liberal message or liberal agenda. There is no liberal equivalent of Fox 'news', which only tells one political side of the story. There is laziness, cheapness, and a strong tend towards sensationalism that all color and weaken news coverage. But not in an ideological manner.

Don't forget, 90% of the news media in the US is owned by just a handful of major corporations. And major corporations prefer the conservative agenda. Also, most news broadcasts and all newspapers and magazines are overwhelmingly dependent on advertising revenue for operations, and so so do not act to upset their big corporate sponsors.

 

[Dreadnought]

There is no liberal media in the US. There are liberal people in the media, but there is no major news organization that as a whole is spreading a liberal message or liberal agenda. There is no liberal equivalent of Fox 'news', which only tells one political side of the story. There is laziness, cheapness, and a strong tend towards sensationalism that all color and weaken news coverage. But not in an ideological manner.

Don't forget, 90% of the news media in the US is owned by just a handful of major corporations. And major corporations prefer the conservative agenda. Also, most news broadcasts and all newspapers and magazines are overwhelmingly dependent on advertising revenue for operations, and so so do not act to upset their big corporate sponsors.

I can't believe you just asserted such a naive statement.

Jeez man, come on.

 

[useless]

It really depends on what definiton of "liberal" you're using. If you're using the American one, I guess there could be a case made for the idea of a "liberal media" (ugh), but American political discourse is fairly rooted in the right (generally) that to most outsiders, I'd hazard a guess they'd interpret it as centre-right media (or centrist at best).

 

[Hygro]

My bigger problem is with false equality in media. If the general consensus is that computers run on electrical power and some nutter says they are actually run by invisible satanic gnomes then it will be treated as a 'controversy.' It should just be ignored.

If you rant about Fox News and at the same time claim there is no "liberal media" as well, then you are just disingenuous.

Rawful....

 

[Angst]

It really depends on what definiton of "liberal" you're using. If you're using the American one, I guess there could be a case made for the idea of a "liberal media" (ugh), but American political discourse is fairly rooted in the right (generally) that to most outsiders, I'd hazard a guess they'd interpret it as centre-right media (or centrist at best).

For the sake of the thread, I'm using the (wrong) American idea of "Liberal" - that's also the reason I capitalized Liberal, attributing the term to the party and not the ideology.

 

[downtown]

My bigger problem is with false equality in media. If the general consensus is that computers run on electrical power and some nutter says they are actually run by invisible satanic gnomes then it will be treated as a 'controversy.' It should just be ignored.

Nailed it. This is a huge problem. Laziness and fear of appearing biased are way bigger deals than actual political bias.

 

[Core Imposter]

There is no doubt that a lot of liberal slant has crept in at Fox News over the years. Basically what you get there is neoliberal doctrine. CNN has went exponitially more leftwingward as it has struggled with ratings. Most of other sources aren't even watchable.

Out of country news services are far more objective than American services today.

Sean Hannity is emblematic of the problem. Totally biased, he can go from supporting the Tea Party to supporting Romney in a single breath, as if those two entities aren't mutually and cosmisically incompatible.

If the hallmark of the liberal movement has been to constantly redine words and concepts to sow confusion and move the goalposts, and it certainly has been, Fox is doing nothing more or less with their programing. The agenda is neoconservative, which, if you understand the political spectrum correctly, is imperial liberalism of a slightly different cast than the Obama wing of the commune, but is neither objectively proffered nor conservative in any sense.

But Fox is pretty effective at conning the base. Human beings are subject to corruption. If the price to win is to compromise your principals, most people are willing to do it. For the sake of defeating Obama people are allowing themselves to be led down the path of perdition.

Now we have laid before us an election in which it would be a terrible tragedy if either candidate is elected. This is the indirect result of the lack of objectivity in media. Self restraint is extinct.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The "liberal media bias" nonsense perpetuated by many arch conservatives was first started in the years leading up to WWII when antisemitism was still quite prevalent and many people claimed the Jews were trying to control the world:

In the years leading up to World War II, politicians who favored the United States entering the war on the German side accused the international media of a pro-Jewish bias, and often asserted that newspapers opposing entry of the United States on the German side were controlled by Jews. They claimed that reports of German mistreatment of Jews were biased and without foundation. Hollywood was said to be a hotbed of Jewish bias, and pro-German politicians in the United States called for Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator to be banned as an insult to a respected leader.[7]

During the civil rights movement in the 1960s, some White Southerners[who?] stated that television was biased against White Southerners and in favor of mixing of the races. In some cases, Southern television stations refused to air programs such as I Spy and Star Trek, because of their racially mixed casts.[8]

During the labor union movement and the civil rights movement, newspapers supporting liberal social reform were accused by conservative newspapers of communist bias.[9][10]

In November 1969, Spiro Agnew, then Vice President under Richard Nixon, made a landmark speech denouncing what he saw as media bias against the Vietnam War. He called those opposed to the war the "nattering nabobs of negativism."[11]

Some far-right hate sites still claim that the media is controlled by Jews.

Ironically, the ""nattering nabobs of negativism" regarding the media turn out to be predominately conservatives:

Demographic Polling

Gallup Polls show that most Americans do not have confidence in the mass media "to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly". In 2011 a 60% majority reported a perception of media bias, with 47% saying mass media was too liberal, 13% too conservative. Prevalence of the perception of bias was highest among partisans, with 78% of conservatives reporting a perception of bias, 53% of liberals reporting a perception of bias and only 46% of moderates reporting a perception of bias. Those who view mass media reporting as "just about right" was polled at 36%, in the historic range of Gallup polling.[12][13] According to Gallup, in every year since 2002 more Americans think the media show liberal bias than think the media show conservative bias.[14]

Outside of the clearly partisan sources such as Fox News and MSNBC, the rest of the media is driven by public opinion in search of the highest possible ratings. They provide what the American public wants to hear to maximize their advertising revenue.

Herman and Chomsky (1988) in their book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media proposed a propaganda model to explain the systematic biases of U.S. media as a consequence of the pressure to create a stable and profitable business. This regime creates filters that bias news in favor of U.S. corporate interests.

Their propaganda model first and foremost discusses self-censorship through the corporate system (see corporate censorship); that reporters and especially editors share and/or acquire values with corporate elites in order to further their careers. Those that don’t are usually weeded out or marginalized. Such examples have been dramatized in fact-based movie dramas as “Good Night, and Good Luck” and “The Insider” or demonstrated in the documentary “The Corporation”.[15] In the early 20th-century, George Orwell originally wrote a preface for his book “Animal Farm”, which focused on the British self-censorship of the time. "The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. ... [Things are] kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact." As if to prove the point, the preface itself was censored and is not published with most copies of the book.

The propaganda model posits that advertising dollars are essential for funding most media sources and clearly have an effect on the content of the media. For example, according to Fair, ‘When Al Gore proposed launching a progressive TV network, a Fox News executive told Advertising Age (10/13/03): "The problem with being associated as liberal is that they wouldn't be going in a direction that advertisers are really interested in.... If you go out and say that you are a liberal network, you are cutting your potential audience, and certainly your potential advertising pool, right off the bat.”[16] Furthermore “an internal memo from ABC Radio Networks to its affiliates reveals scores of powerful sponsors have a standing order that their commercials never be placed on syndicated Air America programming that airs on ABC affiliates…. The list, totaling 90 advertisers, includes some of largest and most well-known corporations advertising in the U.S.: Wal-Mart, GE, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Bank of America, Fed-Ex, Visa, Allstate, McDonald's, Sony and Johnson & Johnson. The U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Navy are also listed as advertisers who don't want their commercials to air on Air America.”[17]

According to Noam Chomsky, American commercial media encourage controversy within a narrow range of opinion, in order to give the impression of open debate, but do not report on news that falls outside that range.[18]

Scholars Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman argue that the logic in some of the conservative arguments regarding liberal bias are flawed. They argue that comparing the media product to the voting record of the journalists is akin to thinking auto-factory workers design the cars they help produce. Indeed, they argue that the media owners and news makers are the ones with an agenda, and they argue that this agenda is subordinated to corporate interests that they view as often leaning right.[19

Liberal media in the US is a myth.

 

[Cutlass]

I can't believe you just asserted such a naive statement.

Jeez man, come on.

Demonstrate it then. I've been watching the news for 30 years without seeing any liberal bias.

 

[JtheJackal]

Just see how many news sources point out that Romney's Obama "Didn't build that" narrative is a total lie. MSNBC and anyone else? If the "liberal media" can't even point out when conservatives actually lie how much liberal agenda can there actually be?

 

[Dreadnought]

Demonstrate it then. I've been watching the news for 30 years without seeing any liberal bias.

Have you seen some of the commentators on MSNBC?

Just see how many news sources point out that Romney's Obama "Didn't build that" narrative is a total lie. MSNBC and anyone else? If the "liberal media" can't even point out when conservatives actually lie how much liberal agenda can there actually be?

 

[Cutlass]

Have you seen some of the commentators on MSNBC?

A couple of commentators against an actual news program.... And still the so-called 'liberals' in most instances also have a conservative counterpoint on the air.

 

[warpus]

From an internal, American POV "the liberal media" might make some sense, but viewed by an outsider and being familiar with some of the media in question, the label is ridiculously hilarious and inaccurate.

 

[Flying Pig]

Americans would do well to note that your most left-wing mainstream politicians aren't much different from our most right-wing mainstream politicians!