Conservative Media Bias Called a 'Matter of Life and Death

(CNSNews.com) - Conservative bias in the American news media is "not simply a matter of taste, but of life and death," a panel of liberal radio talk show hosts and representatives of leftist organizations told a group of Democras on Tuesday.

"There is no more urgent problem facing America today," stated Mark Lloyd, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), one of 10 panelists who spoke on "Media Bias and the Future of Freedom of the Press."

The forum was chaired by U.S. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, and focused on what Lloyd called "ideological distortion" that is "built into the current system."

No individual or group dedicated to the monitoring of liberal media bias was invited to the event, though Conyers said he might invite "an independent or a Republican" at a similar forum in six months.

"Whoever has the most money has the loudest voice," Lloyd said, which means that "multi-national corporations dominate the debate today. Profit is what counts," instead of "promoting a democratic dialogue."

Other panelists focused their criticism on "the right-wing media," which Al Franken, a comedian and radio talk show host, described as a "coordinated propaganda machine capable of causing symptoms closely resembling mental illness."

In his opening statement, Franken named "the Fox News Channel, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Washington Times and, of course, talk radio" as media that work in league with the Bush administration and corporate-funded think tanks.

Franken also charged that people in "right-wing radio," such as conservative talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, "routinely lie, they spread hate, and I chose to do the job I'm doing right now" on the liberal Air America network "because someone needed to push back."

After Franken stated that he had gone on USO tours to boost the morale of U.S. troops abroad, he accused Limbaugh of being a "one-man demoralizer," for telling his listeners that "liberals want soldiers to die." Limbaugh's program, he noted, is broadcast on Armed Forces Radio.

"These guys will just lie," Franken added, since "their purpose is not to serve their audiences, but to manipulate them."

Eric Alterman, another senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of the book "What Liberal Media?" said there's so much wrong with the media "that one could go on forever."

Over the past five decades, Alterman said, Republican politicians, writers, television pundits and think tanks have been remarkably successful at convincing the American people of a "liberal bias" in the media.

"Using the very same media outlets that they complain don't give their cause a fair shake, they know that slamming the other side is little more than a way to get their ideas across while drowning out opposing voices." Alterman called it "a massive bait-and-switch operation."

Alterman also expressed concern for the establishment press, which "must, on a daily basis, come face to face with an administration obsessed with secrecy and which belittles and browbeats reporters at every opportunity.

"Note how quickly [White House Press Secretary] Scott McClennan [sic] blamed Newsweek for the rioting in Afghanistan last week," he said.

"Despite the fact that his bosses presided over the invasion of Iraq and the well-documented abuses at Abu Ghraib and Bagram, the administration -- along with a whole host of ready-for-prime-time conservative talking heads -- pounced on one sentence in a short blurb, claiming that it caused irreparable harm to the 'image of America' in the Muslim world," Alterman added.

Reaction to Newsweek's retracted story also drew fire from Randi Rhodes, another Air America talk show host, who accused the White House of calling the magazine "an accessory to murder for printing a story of Koran abuse that the [International Red Cross Committee] has clearly documented for more than three years" in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Rhodes claimed "corporate news has simply become propaganda for a Republican majority today, a Republican majority tomorrow, a Republican majority forever."

She had three recommendations for addressing media bias. The first was for Congress to adopt standards for labeling a broadcast as news instead of opinion or commentary.

"Second, I think we need to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, which served this country well from 1949 through 1987" by guaranteeing "competing viewpoints on issues of public importance."

Rhodes' final suggestion was "to protect our journalists," who "must be free to report and never be penalized with lost access to the people they cover or with retribution from partisan employers.

"If you fail to act," she told the liberal U.S. representatives in attendance, "I will be a member of a minority party for a very long time. That is, if the two-party system can survive this new propaganda machine called the news."

Conyers held a similar conservative bashing forum shortly after President Bush's re-election last November, in which an entirely liberal group of speakers advanced theories that Republicans had stolen the 2004 election.

I find it funny that this article came from the Conservative News Service.

Oh wait, they changed what the C stood for, but I forget what it is.

This was linked from AirAmericaRadio.Com, I didn't even read it closely enough to see it was a conservative piece. In fact, after your post, it is still increasingly difficult to identify CNSNews.com as conservative. The fact that they called Voinovich "weepy" should be a clue, I guess.

Tom Tomorrow:
Keeping my head above water

This cartoon, which ran in the American Prospect in December of 2001, riffs on a Hannity & Colmes-style show called "The Shouting Zone."



Well, once again, reality outpaces satire:



Note also the fourth panel in that cartoon, in which--crazy, over the top satirist that I am--I have the conservative suggesting that the evildoers should be "tortured until they spill their guts." This was, of course, well before the Abu Ghraib revelations, back when the very notion that anyone would condone the torture of detainees still seemed like--well--outrageous satire.

That's how far we've come, and how quickly.
posted by Tom Tomorrow at 07:52 PM | link

I firmly believe that there is no conservative or liberal media bias. What it comes down to is self-interest. If it makes a better story or pays better to have a conservative slant, then it will be so. Likewise if you get better ratings and more attention with a liberal slant, then they will do it. It's about what the motivation is. It's not to be conservative or liberal, it's to sell more news than the other guy, or get more exposure than your competitor.
So I think the reality is that the media seems to be more liberal in some cases and more conservative in others, depending on how it plays or spins better at any given moment.

I'm not so sure I believe that about FOX News.

I believe that about the networks and CNN. I'm not so sure I believe that about FOX News.

Fox gets very good ratings and makes a lot of money because of their angle.

I just laugh when there are so many problems/challenges facing America and the world that someone actually thinks out loud "There is no more urgent problem facing America today".

I'm sorry, I don't know of these "urgent problems" of which you speak because they are not dealt with in the major media outlets.

I firmly believe that there is no conservative or liberal media bias. What it comes down to is self-interest. If it makes a better story or pays better to have a conservative slant, then it will be so. Likewise if you get better ratings and more attention with a liberal slant, then they will do it. It's about what the motivation is. It's not to be conservative or liberal, it's to sell more news than the other guy, or get more exposure than your competitor.
So I think the reality is that the media seems to be more liberal in some cases and more conservative in others, depending on how it plays or spins better at any given moment.

Oh, so we have talk radio, Fox, and a newspaper. The left is blatantly bias in all other forms of print media, and also claim posession of every other TV station. The reason the right is on the radio, is because there's nothing but left wing bias in everything else.

Left is Good.....No Way, the Right is the Best...the Left washes hair...the Right makes hair smooth and shiny....