The Art of Manipulation

If you’ve ever been to a sporting event of any kind, you know that the referee has at least three options when listening to objections. He can consider the objection and be mindful for future calls, she can completely ignore the objection or the referee can follow the advice of the objecting party, and essentially give in. In my experience the ref will likely ignore the objection and uphold the ruling, that is unless the referee is the news media and the objectors are conservative media pundants. As indicated in a recent study, the news media is listening to the objections of the conservatives and making concessions’ which attempt to counter the perceived vast liberal bias. A new study from the people at Media Matters has highlighted the trend of the American Media of moving to the right, in particular, the Sunday morning talk shows.

On the Sunday Morning political talk shows the conservatives show up in droves and pronounce a liberal bias at every opportunity, but in reality, you’ll find liberal representation on these Sunday shows is slim to none. Conservatives regularly appear but not one mainstream liberal has ever been a regular. You're not likely to see E.J. Dionne, Robert Kuttner, Paul Krugman, Hendrik Hertzberg or Molly Ivins, however; Bob Novak, Fred Barnes, Tucker Carlson, Tony Blankley or Pat Buchanan are as ubiqutes as air. Indeed, with the exception of Alan Colmes, one is hard pressed to come up with a single journalist or pundit appearing on television who is even remotely as far to the left of the mainstream spectrum as most of the conservatives are to the right.

An extensive study from the Quarterly Journal of Economics suggests that there is a liberal media bias, however the study only looked at the mainstream news outlets. In particular the study looked at the major news programs, ABC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, etc. The examination looked at cable news too, with Brit Hume’s (right of center) evening program on the Fox Network examined (no other Fox News programs were analyzed). Conversely the study looked at The News with Aaron Brown on CNN and found a slight liberal tilt. The Quarterly Journal study is a good start at analyzing the landscape of American journalism, but not as thorough as necessary to uncover the broad picture. The Study did not examine the recent trend of CNN's move to the extreme right by hiring Glen Beck. Mr. Beck is hardly moderate or right of center analyst. Still many on the right side of reality are suggesting a crude liberal bias, all the while the conservatives are gaining ground and the liberals are taking heavy casualties. The root of the problem is this, the conservatives are manipulating the media, “working the refs" , and the media is acquiescing.

Ever since the days of the Goldwater presidential campaign, the conservatives have been complaining about the actions of the referees (the American media) in their struggle to dominate American politics. The refs (the media), according to the conservatives, are biased against them and want the other side (the liberals) to win the game. But recent attempts at fairness, ie. CNN hiring Glen Beck, while not giving equal time to the left, is not going to solve the any part of this issue, it’s only creating another problem - another media bias.
The media does not want to be bias or perceived that way so in usual knee jerk fashion they are moving to the right - far right. This is a way of saying, “ok we’ve done what you want, now leave us alone”. However, a move to the far right is only going to exacerbate the problem, and I seriously doubt that the hardcore conservatives will be satisfied anytime soon. We must learn to expect more from our Media.
Is it too much to ask that our news be delivered without editorial influence and that the editorial influences be balanced by a doctrine of fairness?
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