[CLUE-Talk] Media outlets

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Sean LeBlanc wrote:

*snip*

> To you. I disagree. I don't have time for all the arguments, but Bernard
> Goldberg's book _Bias_ does a good job highlighting some of it. Keep in
> mind: he's a liberal. He was also denounced as not a *liar*, but instead a
> *traitor* by the left.

I don't know a great deal about Goldberg, so I can't say much except
that it's kind of hard to paint Goldberg as a liberal when he calls
homelessness a "liberal" cause. I guess if worrying about the homeless
is strictly a "liberal" cause then the threshhold for liberalism
is pretty low.

> But you don't even need to read his book. Just watch the news, and see how
> often they interview a rep from a "women's group" other than NOW. Watch how
> often anti-abortion crowd is portrayed as "outside the mainstream". See how
> often someone who IS representing the conservative viewpoint is flagged as
> such vs. someone who happens to be from a liberal organization. Why does
> nearly everyone know who Matthew Shepherd is, and few have heard of Jesse
> Dierkhising? Both were victims of abhorrent crimes.

I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here since I avoid watching television
news like the plague since I stopped working in TV news. I have
no idea who they're interviewing these days.

The only reason I have any bearing on Fox and CNN is because they're
always on at the gym that I go to... but the packaged TV news shows
on the local channels or national (ABC, CBS, NBC) news I don't
watch.

The anti-abortion crowd IS outside the mainstream...hate to break it
to you, but the pro-lifers aren't mainstream. Particularly not the
ones who are out holding the big dead fetus pictures and yelling
at abortion doctors. Certainly not the ones who advocate the killing
of doctors.

There are plenty of people who don't necessarily believe in abortion,
but don't want to see it illegal again, either. The pro-lifers are
usually considered extreme. You don't often see "pro-abortion"
activists because, by and large, the people who favor legal abortion
are content to let those who don't believe in it NOT HAVE THEM.
Generally, I consider it pretty extreme when someone tries to force
their religious views on me.

As for the rationale behind publicizing Matthew Shepherd over the
murder of Jesse Dierkhising... I couldn't tell you why the Dierkhising
case wasn't publicized more. I can say that Matthew Shepherd's murder
raised a major outcry and it didn't go against corporate interests
to publicize it.

In all honesty -- though I think it was horrible -- I think that
Shepherd's murder received too much coverage. Put simply, it didn't
fit the definition of news for most of the country. It was, for
the most part, sensationalism. That, of course, doesn't fit neatly
within the conservative/liberal framework anyway.

> I'm familiar with projectcensored, BTW. I think one of the top censored
> stories is/was the H1B issue. I'm not sure where that falls, and it's not
> easily explained by any idealogy. Maybe the parents corps are in favor of
> H1B, I dunno.

When you say "H1B issue" what are you referring to?

> LOL! Oh, come on! Fox may be just right of center, but they aren't even
> close Rush territory. Does Rush have Ferraro on call? I've seen her on Fox
> countless times. What about Geraldo? What about Colmes?

They're a lot closer to Rush territory than "just right of center."

> Good. Well, now they should find and show people calling for Byrd to step
> down, not just apologize. They should also make *sure* they mention he was
> the Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1930s.

Now wait a second... "find and show" -- in otherwords you're calling
for them to go digging until they find someone calling for this?

People have been stepping up and calling press conferences to denounce
Trent Lott -- it's not been difficult for the press to "find and show"
those people -- it's not the press' responsibility to present 100%
even coverage when that's not reality. By this I mean that if 90%
of the public is for/against an issue/person/whatever they don't
have to give 50/50 time to the 10% who are on the other side. That's
a complete distortion of reality.

In fact, I'd say it's a distortion to go after Byrd right now. Whatever
he's done, it's in the past -- I'm in no way justifying it, but Lott
is the one on the hot seat right now. (Actually, he just stepped off
the hot seat...) They don't have to go and rehash a past scandal in
another politician's life to be fair to Lott or the Republican party.

> I couldn't agree more with you - sports and Hollywood should never be on
> equal footing with "news". Even worse, I hate the fact that someone like
> Barbara Streisand's opinion is somehow projected as one that matters or at
> least should matter to the public, just because they are a celebrity. Or
> Woody Harrelson's. Or Alec Baldwin's. These people are *actors* and
> *singers*. Why should I hold their opinion in any higher esteem than my own,
> or the grocery bagger's?

No reason that I can think of...

> I'd dig up a conservative Hollywood person who espouses their
> opinion a lot, but I can't think of one that does and doesn't hold some sort
> of office that justifies the soapbox(i.e., Heston)

I think Ah-nold and Bruce Willis used to stump for Bush and the GOP,
but I can't think of a lot of conservative actors anyway...

The fact is, people with a conservative mindset are rarely compelled
to go into "liberal" occupations. They're more likely to get an MBA,
and go run companies into the ground (couldn't resist...) instead
of getting a job as a reporter or trying to become an actor or
whatever.

Having worked in radio and TV, however, I stand by my previous
statement -- the overall bent of most media outlets falls to the
conservative side because of the fact that the final output is
controlled by a group of people who are predominantly dedicated to
a conservative mindset and who are responsible to corporate
interests.

Dan Rather and the rest of the lot might be liberals, they might
even get to skew stories to the left but the stories that actually
get covered are by and large the ones that the conservatives want
to see covered.

If the media is such a liberal lot, answer me this -- how did
the whole Clinton/Lewinsky fiasco remain such a big issue when
Iran/Contra and other issues have never gotten the same kind
of hysteria when they're FAR WORSE? Why is it that Clinton got
such a rough ride from the media when Bush has gotten such a
honeymoon after failing to even win the popular vote? Even
prior to 9/11, the media has been far more gentle towards
Bush than they ever were to Clinton -- and the Bush White House
has been extremely uncooperative towards the rank and file
press.

Zonker
--
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
http://www.dissociatedpress.net/