Unguarded Comments of Media-Savvy Conservatives
regarding Claims of
"Liberal Bias" in the Media
While some conservatives actually believe
their own grumbles, the smart ones don’t.
While the masses of
Bush regime supporters continue to accept the myth of the "Liberal
Media" as an act of faith, the most media-savvy conservative leaders
know better. But even while, in unguarded moments, acknowledging the
unreality of this fable, Bush promoters are not above continuing to
exploit it politically. Indeed, in an America with airways dominated as
never before by the 24 hour presence of demagogic talk radio and
stridently partisan Fox News, it is a myth that persists only with
continuous reinforcement, and it is the incessant repetition on this
"Liberal Media" mantra that is the primary factor in the creation of
our current intimidated and compliant press.
In his introduction to
"What Liberal Media?", Eric Alterman notes,
But while
some conservatives actually believe their own grumbles, the smart ones
don’t.
They know mau-mauing the other side is a just a good way to get their
ideas
across—or perhaps to prevent the other side from getting a fair hearing
for
theirs.
On occasion, honest
conservatives admit this. Rich Bond, then the chair of the Republican
Party, complained during the 1992 election,
“I think we know who the media want to
win this election—and I don’t think it’s George Bush.” The very
same
Rich Bond
also noted during the very same election, however, “There is
some
strategy to
it [bashing the ‘liberal’ media] . . . . If you watch any great coach,
what
they try to do is ‘work the refs.’ Maybe the ref will cut you a little
slack on
the next one.”
Bond is
hardly alone. That the SCLM were biased against the administration of
Ronald
Reagan is an article of faith among Republicans. Yet James Baker,
perhaps the
most media-savvy of them, owned up to the fact that any such complaint
was
decidedly misplaced.
“There were
days and times and events we
might have had some complaints [but] on balance I don’t think we had
anything to complain about,” he explained to one writer.
Patrick Buchanan, among
the most conservative pundits and presidential candidates in the
republic’s history, found that he could not identify any allegedly
liberal bias against him during his presidential candidacies.
“I’ve gotten
balanced coverage, and broad
coverage—all we could have asked. For heaven sakes, we kid about the
‘liberal media,’ but every Republican on earth does that,”
[Buchanan] cheerfully confessed during the 1996 campaign.
And even William Kristol,
without a doubt the most influential Republican/neoconservative
publicist in America, has come clean on this issue.
“I
admit it,” he
told a reporter. “The
liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often
used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.”
Nevertheless Kristol
apparently feels no compunction about exploiting and reinforcing
ignorant prejudices of his own constituency. In a 2001 subscription
pitch to conservative potential subscribers of his Rupert
Murdoch–funded magazine, the Weekly Standard, Kristol complained, “The
trouble with politics and political coverage today is that there’s too
much liberal bias. . . . There’s too much tilt toward the left-wing
agenda. Too much apology for liberal policy failures. Too much
pandering to liberal candidates and causes.” (It’s a wonder he left
out “Too much hypocrisy.”)
The above is excerpted from "Bias,
Slander, and BS", in "What
Liberal Media?" by Eric Alterman, p.3.
Link to original
.
. .
. .
The founders
of our republic
spoke frequently of the essentiality of an informed and self-governing
citizenry. Skillful manipulation of public opinion, never extolled as
an American nor "conservative value", is today unquestionably a craft
at which this Administration excels. While there is no dispute that
this artfulness, and the attainment of mastery over the media, has
enabled the neoconservative movement to achieve an unparalleled level
of influence, it has yet to be seen what damage will accrue to our
institutions of self-governance, and grave questions remain over long
term effects that this change will effect upon individual liberty,
autonomy, and other fundamental American values.
While some conservative leaders have expressed concern for the tendency
of the modern conservative movement to yield to the temptations of
political power which may be achieved by the use of such manipulative
techniques, and while some have decried the subsequent loss of
commitment by conservatives to fundamental American values of
individual liberty, fairness, and respect for an informed citizenry
with diverse points of view, the unfortunate reality is that the
current conservative movement is dominated by those with other
priorities.
|