MY FAVORITE bumper sticker on my car reads like this: "The media is only as liberal as the conservative businesses that own them." Some would complain that it's too verbose for a bumper sticker, but I would argue the point is so significant it warrants breaking from the traditional epigram format. Contrary to what the raging right contends, particularly almost everyone on Fox News and Ann Coulter, there is no liberal media. Maybe there was one in the past, but I cannot emphasize this enough -- the era of the liberal media is over.
The media, of course, is not the beacon of objectivity. The media obsesses on negative, sensationalist stories because that's what draws in the readers and viewers. The media is not perfect, but it is far from the voice of the Democratic National Committee.
Admittedly, the lack of a liberal bias can be hard to identify. One has to ignore all the claptrap from conservative ideologues and actually analyze the media itself -- what a concept.
During the Clinton years, I lost all faith in the so-called "liberal" media. They attacked Clinton as if he was a true criminal like Nixon. Even though they neglected stories such as allegations of Clinton as a murderer and a rapist (to the right, Clinton clearly was some kind of maniacal, evil genius), they still attacked him for the worst of all crimes: oral sex. They didn't withhold any juicy details, and although both The New York Times and The Washington Post stuck up for Clinton on the editorial page, the front page lacked such sympathy. Sex sells everywhere; the media couldn't resist the headlines of a presidential sex scandal. Sex -- and the profits associated with it -- apparently triumphed over the media's firm belief to never be critical of a Democratic president.
If the non-stop Clinton harassment was not enough, the 2000 election should convince anyone that the liberal bias is dead. Al Franken pointed this out in his new book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," and unlike Ann Coulter, his endnotes actually lead to reliable resources. A non-partisan group, the Pew Charitable Trusts Project for Excellence in Journalism, did a report on the media coverage of the candidates during the heart of the campaign: the debate season. They examined 1,149 news stories from different news outlets. They rated each story as positive, neutral or negative for each candidate. Positive stories for Bush outnumbered those for Gore nearly two to one (24 versus 13 percent). Moreover, Gore also had more negative stories written about him (56 versus 49 percent). Now unless compassionate conservative means New Deal liberal, the so-called liberal press actually leaned towards Bush. But apparently having the media support their candidate wasn't enough to convince conservative advocates that the media was trying to hold them down.
Bush's presidency has been one of the most unchallenged since LBJ. After the election, the media was soft on him for the sake of unity after the divisive (a.k.a. stolen) election. Once the media finally began to be critical of the president, September 11 gave Bush a free pass once again. For most of the march to war, the major papers rarely, if ever, covered war protests. The major cable TV networks could barely restrain their excitement for war: MSNBC even had a countdown to war in the lower-left hand corner after Bush gave his ultimatum.
More recently, when Bush finally admitted that there was "no evidence" of a connection between Saddam Hussein and September 11, The New York Times, the bastion of liberalism, stuck the story on page A22. They missed a chance to catch Bush in his web of lies and dropped the ball. Perhaps they forgot about their liberal bias on that day.
Fox News, perhaps the station guiltiest of bias, constantly tries to emphasize how their competitors are culpable for liberal bias. As an example, I was watching Hannity and Colmes last Thursday night, Oct. 9, not only because I am a masochist, but because they released a poll which revealed that 14 percent of Americans think the media is too conservative, while 45 percent of Americans think the media is too liberal. However, this poll hardly passes as evidence of a true liberal bias; it only offers proof at how vocal the conservatives are at spreading the lies of an unbalanced press.
The conservative right will never drop the issue of the "liberal bias." They will continue to try to brainwash Americans into thinking there is such a thing. And they succeed, for there is no liberal Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh (thank goodness) to counter their specious arguments. Just because more people think the media is too liberal does not actually make the media full of liberal bias, no matter what Sean Hannity would have the innocent public believe. If you want fair and balanced, there is no need to turn to Fox News -- it's already in the mainstream.
(Patrick Harvey is a Cavalier Daily Opinion editor. He can be reached at pharvey@cavalierdaily.com.)
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