The Liberal Media Myth (I)

Every time someone claims the media is just too damn liberal, God probably kills a puppy and clips an angel's wings. And I die a little inside.

As I previously mentioned, I think this is in part due to the fact that the political center has somehow moved to the right. So regardless of whatever fairly benign, moderate positions newspapers and television shows take on education or transit or foreign alliances, conservatives can scream that it is liberal according to their interpretation of the political spectrum.

But that is definitely not the whole story. The media has lost a great deal of independence, as corporate owners are definitely in favor of keeping the present incarnation of the GOP in power. It's no great secret as to why big business wants Republicans in power; after all, how else would you manage to rig the system so that gains are capitalized (profit motive, capitalism, etc.) and losses are socialized (and yes, that's a crappy link, but the bailout window opened a few weeks ago and I hate digging through old news).

And what happens in the political race? The same guy who did a baseless, factually deficient hit job on Kerry in 2004 is pushing a baseless, factually deficient hit job on Obama in 2008. Yet television stations give the guy a pulpit to spread his lies. It wouldn't be as bad if there were more people on television like Bob Costas, who put more pressure on Bush in an interview for the Olympics than news anchors and hosts whose job it is to ask tough, investigative questions and avoid the entire "gotcha" journalism crap.

It's kind of sad that our "liberal" media's best critics of conservative stupidity are sportscasters.


Posted by pdmccaul [Politics] ( August 13, 2008 09:05 PM ) Permalink | Comments[0]