2/4/2002
‘Liberal’
Media Doesn’t Please Liberals
A
popular book lately is Bias by
Bernard Goldberg arguing that mainstream TV news has a liberal bias. The news
may not be conservative enough for some, but it is hardly liberal.
If
you’re not familiar with the U.S. support of Indonesia while it massacred East
Timor, it’s probably because mainstream news never covered it much. Do you have
a good understanding of why there are so many protesters against the WTO
meetings? Probably not, because mainstream news has done an atrocious job of
laying it out in the detail it needs. Do you remember when the passage of NAFTA
was a hot topic? Labor organizations were against it and painted as spoil
sports because it might cut into the wages of members. But did you know that
the major labor organizations were for
a slightly different version of NAFTA? Virtually the same as the version
proposed by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment? Probably not,
because that would require covering labor issues from a labor perspective.
Think
about it. When was the last time you saw a labor issue covered at all? When
they are it is generally just a brief report that union “X” and company “Y” are
on the verge of a strike, end of story. Or it may come from the business angle
of what this could do to the company. Never any analysis of the workers claims:
are they getting shorted on
overtime pay? Are there unsafe
conditions? Are they getting no
raises year after year while the top managers benefits go through the roof?
You’re not likely to find out from mainstream news.
The
one network most accused of being liberal is PBS. Its “The News Hour”, rarely
has anyone but mainstream representatives of whatever the issue is; political
leaders, business leaders, think tank spokesmen, more often from conservative
think tanks.
The
mainstream media do tend to like David-and-Goliath stories, which makes them
prone to stories that sound like they’re picking on big-business and
big-government, but it’s really just what makes good news copy. That hardly
makes them liberal.
In
his book Mr. Goldberg says the news anchors are out of touch with most
Americans because they tend to vote Democratic. Let’s remember that about half
the presidential votes went to Al Gore, and a significant number went to the
more liberal Ralph Nader. Polls consistently show that even conservative voters
are concerned about issues such as the environment. So, if there are periodic
news stories on the topic, they’re simply being on target.
If
mainstream news was roughly in the center one might think that that’s where
they ought to be and they’re doing a good job. But the fact is they’re not.
They rarely dig deep into a subject that needs it. They almost never use their
imagination to find the issues or angles that should be important but aren’t.
They are all to ready to run whomever had a “photo-op” today and call it news.
The fact is it’s mostly milque-toast info-tainment and nobody depending on it
is going to become an informed citizen.
Conservatives
may not be happy with mainstream news, but I can guarantee one thing; it’s not
because they’re making liberals happy. Here’s one of these issues where we
could find common ground. I don’t think liberals or conservatives should be
happy with most news. It’s an important job in keeping a free country running
right, and it’s not being done nearly well enough.