Posted by WMD | My most recent post, What liberal media? regarding the scant coverage the press has given GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, elicited a series of responses from readers about the "liberal media". Wish I had a nickel for every time I heard someone refer to the media as liberal.
The term implies a decidedly left-leaning agenda by news organizations, those who report the news and the slant on the news stories they report. It further implies support for the ideals, agendas and viewpoints of the non-corporate and non-establishment population. This would include women, minorities, the working class and the otherwise economically disadvantaged.
Media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting conducts studies of media bias and censorship. Their mission is
"to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints."
Here is a sampling of their studies:
In 1989 they reported on a study of the evening TV news magazine Nightline over 40 months. They found 80% of the guests represented government officials or corporate representatives (typically considered "conservative") while only 5% represented public-interest groups (typically labeled "liberals").
FAIR commissioned a one year study in 2001 of network nightly newscasts (ABC, CBS, NBC). They reported that where party affiliation was identifiable, their "news sources" were 75% Republican and 25% Democratic; corporate representatives appeared 35 times more frequently than union representatives; gender and racial representation is 93-99% white male.
A 5 month study (Nov. 1, 2004 - April 30, 2005) was conducted by FAIR of C-SPAN's call-in talk show, Washington Journal. That study revealed that despite that program being considered balanced and politically neutral, WJ's guests were predominantly Republican and right-of-center by considerable margins over Democratic and left-of-center guests. Here, too, the favored white males over females and minority guests.
Even when non-corporate owned (aka the "liberal media" you keep hearing about) does investigative reporting they too can capitulate to the establishment powers. TruthOut is a non-mainstream media news source that carried an article December 2005 titled, "Journalists Should Expose Secrets, Not Keep Them".
The American mainstream press gives us the same information from the same sources and perspective over and over. This homogenization of information does not serve the public interest. It does, though, serve the profit interests of the handful of corporate media conglomerates, "the Big Six", who own the vast majority of news and information sources we have access to.
One of the Big Six, General Electric, also owns, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, the History Channel as well as some international media companies. GE is also in the military hardware business and manufactures jet fighters, tanks, Apache helicopters and other military equipment.
Remember that the next time you watch Meet The Press, the NBC Nightly News or Hardball with Chris Matthews. Keep in mind who stands to profit from favorable reporting on and continuation of the war.
"government officials and corporate representatives…CONSERVATIVE"? You gotta be kidding! This is my first time on your page, but I have to tell you, that one sentence assured me that anyone who had passed the third grade would have trouble believing this article. … just saying it don't make it so! So absurd, it laughable.
Posted by: Dena | August 10, 2007 at 12:55 PM
As you said, "just saying it doesn't make it so".
Perhaps you could take this opportunity to substaniate your claim that gov't & corp. representatives are not conservative.
Maybe begin with your definition of conservative (and liberal).....
Posted by: Woman of Mass Discussion | August 10, 2007 at 02:57 PM