The Phantom: Liberal Media Bias

From a poster at Beliefnet.com/U.S. Politics: It has been the standard M.O. of the media when dealing with Bush ... we have event ... what possible scandlous outcomes could come from it (true or not) ... promote the hell out of the possiblity as if it were true ... (THEN) .. when reports and investigations begin to prove otherwise, go to next event and execute the same M.O.


I'm afraid I simply don't understand this theory of the "liberal" media.

It's true that the national corporate media have been questioning a lot of what the administration says and does, especially in the last year. However I see no "M.O." driven by media liberalism, if for no other reason than the major media are all giant companies in themselves, or are owned by mega-giant corporations. And I guarantee you, the people who sit on the boards of directors of those companies are not "liberals." They're capitalists concerned with profits.

The New York Times Company, for instance, owns 18 other newspapers, a bunch of TV stations, and the Boston Red Sox. NBC is owned by General Electric, CBS by Viacom, and ABC by Disney. Time-Warner owns CNN and Time Magazine. And don't forget, when you talk about "the media" you're also talking about papers like the Washington Times as well as Fox News.

Thus, when the NY Times or MSNBC reports that Lewis Libby outed Valerie Plame on instructions from Cheney and Rove, it's not "liberal bias" that's motivating them to say that. Their motivation is much more down-to-earth, namely that it would not be profitable for their boards of directors, to whom the news operations must answer, to insult the intelligence of their viewers by trying to feed them the Scott McClellan version of these events.

These "liberal media" are already in enough trouble for having acted as the administration's cheerleader and sewer pipe in the runup to the Iraq debacle. You can only lose so much credibility before you start to lose money.

And who are the people who sit on the boards of these companies and giant corporations? They probably drink lattes, and drive Porsches, and give money to African relief charities, and send their kids to snooty Ivy League schools, and patronize the Museum(s) of Modern Art, and live in snobby suburbs. That all sounds very liberal, but to repeat, I guarantee you they're not liberals, even though most of them may be a few ticks to the left of Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge, and Heinrich Himmler.

It's the bottom line they're concerned with, not some imaginary "liberal" line.

A latte does not a liberal make, and neither does a credible news story.