Media Marmalade

The biggest spoiler in the ’04 Election next to Karl Rove was the MSM, which is blogspeak for “Main Stream Media,” both electronic and print. I’d like to see the blog lexicographers change that to the “Corporate Media.” Mainstream actually sounds respectable and gives them way too much credit.

Besides, “Corporate Media” more accurately establishes their pedigree. Electronic media are unabashedly owned by corporate behemoths: ABC by Disney; CBS by Viacom; CNN by Time Warner; NBC/CNBC/MSNBC by GE and Fox (Faux) “News” by Rupert Murdoch, the global media maggot, er magnate.

It is so easy to visualize a call from the Executive Suite to the VP-News, “Make sure that Bush looks good. And make Kerry look like an asshole.” Of course, there would never be a record of such a call and everyone would deny it, but it is certainly within the realm of Karl Rovian reality.

There has been a lot of discussion also about false equivalence. An example: In a speech, George Bush says, “John Kerry’s medical plan will be run by the government.” This is false, but when the “fact checking” is done by your network, local TV or newspaper, they will say that it’s false, but they will then cherry pick a comment from Kerry that is inaccurate. This would usually involve a whopper from George W. Bush and a minor misstatement by John Kerry. But they frame them as equivalent and say that both candidates are playing fast and loose with the truth.

This happened throughout the campaign on various levels. If there was any negative information about Bush, they had to dig up something negative about Kerry…and fabricate it if nothing appropriate could be found.

However, the media are sitting ducks for the Right Wing spinmeisters, cheer leaders, screechmasters and their well-stocked stable of assorted piranhas, barracudas and rabies carriers. For years, the Right has hurled “j’accuse” sticks and stones at the “Liberal Media.” They were probably right back twenty years ago and before. Not that the media was “liberal” through invidious intent, but the prevailing political regimen was forged in the (liberal) New Deal and for whatever reasons, reporters tended to self-identify as liberals, or at least that was the conventional wisdom.

But much changed with the accession of Ronald Reagan. A good master's thesis project for a journalism or history student would be on the evolution of media political spectrum identification over the last half of the twentieth century. Today, the “liberal media” has been fully transformed into what Eric Alterman has dubbed the SCLM (so-called liberal media) and it is dripping with invidious intent.

One more factor that has been discussed in various forums is called “working the ref.” Visualize a college basketball game. One side has a core group in the stands that lapses into a frenzy of boo’s, hisses and angry catcalls when a referee makes a call against their team. This is picked up by the team’s other fans and before long every call elicits a great chorus of remonstration. The intent is for the referee, hearing the reaction, to question his/her accuracy so that if there’s a close one, he/she may be reluctant to call it.

The Right does this all the time. They are ever-vigilant in watching the MSM and if they perceive that there is bias, they pull out the stops and the chorus sings. As you can imagine, no reporter likes bushel baskets of hate mail or to get clobbered with emails. I’ve posted comments on Right Wing blogs and I’ll tell you first hand that they get very abusive.

However, when a reporter writes something bad about the Left, there is little penalty to pay. They may get a letter to the editor or an email, calmly and rationally explaining the error of their ways, but nothing to cause fear for their life or that of their family.

Thus the Right controls the media from both ends. The corporate Executive Suite exercises influence if not outright pressure to bend copy to meet the party line. The consumer side rises up in a frenzy at any perceived slight.

Finally, several years ago I was listening to an NPR program with David Horowitz and an ineffectual “liberal” whose name I forget. David Horowitz is of course extremely voluble and very aggressive and the "liberal" was being eaten alive. However, one caller complained about having the liberal on the show. The moderator explained that they had Mr. Horowitz on to provide the conservative view as well. The caller said, “I just don’t care what a liberal says. I don’t know why you want to have him on the show.”

That incident rode around my head for some time and I finally concluded that people from the Right don’t want to hear both sides. They want to hear their side and to hell with the rest. I think that is the reason for the Right’s abiding criticism of media bias: They don’t want “fair and balanced,” they want outright advocacy. That’s why Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Fox News in general are embraced so fervently by the Right. They don’t present both sides, they present the Right side.