Liberal Bias in the Media?

By Jove! I think he's got it.

Sheldon Rampton is one of the smartest writers around when it comes to media literacy. I first came across his name when I was producing a series of video tapes for The Center For The Environment at Cornell University. The project had the very unsexy title Agricultural Land Application of Bio-Solids--bio-solids being a tarted-up way of saying human sewage.

Sheldon's book has a much better title and is a bit more to the point, Toxic Sludge is Good For You. Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry.

He's published several other books, the most recent being Weapons of Mass Deception-- in which deconstructs the PR campaign Bush used to promote the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq in the wake of 9/11.

He is also the editor and PR Watch, which publishes a weekly newsletter about the misbehavior of the public relations industry and the consequences of the flacks on hacks in the media.

We both participate in a listserve hosted by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ-L). Recently there have been a larger than usual number of newbie posts initiated, apparently, by a journalism professor at the University of Maryland. One such post queried the list about the alleged 'liberal bias' in American media.

This is Sheldon's near perfect response:

The reason one hears constant complaints about "liberal bias" in the
press is the same reason that there were constant complaints about
"Jewish control of the newspapers" in Hitler's Germany: because
someone wants to exterminate them.

Back in Hitler's day, the newspapers were not "run by Jews,"
and the news media today are not "run by liberals" either.
What we have in reality is a media system that is owned by
large corporations, and which derives most of its
profit from other large corporations that buy advertisements.

Within that system, a range of viewpoints appear, some of which (a
minority) challenge the assumptions and preferences of the
corporations that own and finance the system.

The myth of "liberal bias" serves as useful rhetoric to to keep
those elements in check. Anyone who challenges the real powers
that dominate the media gets attacked almost instantly for "liberal bias,"
which (1) provides a convenient way to dismiss their reporting, and
(2) puts pressure on them to knock it off.

If the media really had a liberal bias, you'd see a constant stream
of pundits complaining about "conservative bias" in the media. The
constant complaints about "liberal bias" are actually a manifestation
of conservative bias (which is a rather imprecise term for what
should more properly be called "corporate control").

Any questions?

Comments

[bill]

I did not quite follow the first sentence in the last paragraph. Except for that, I agree, I think he's got it.