BCT Editorial – 1/19/05

This page was last updated on January 28, 2005.

Real bias; Editorial; Beaver County Times; January 19, 2005.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“When it comes to the media, bias is in the eye of the beholder.”

[RWC] And when the beholder is the Times, I’m willing to bet the Times can’t find any liberal media bias. Based on a search of the Times web site, so far there has been no editorial addressing Rathergate.

“The Chicago Tribune reports that conservatives ‘found grist for their complaints (about the liberal bias in the media) in a Pew Research Center survey last May concluding that journalists are significantly more liberal than the general public. For example, 34 percent of journalists at national media organizations called themselves liberal and 7 percent conservative; for the public at large, the figures were 20 percent liberal and 33 percent conservative.’

“While the 34 percent does jump out at you, it’s important to note that 59 percent of those journalists at national media organizations identified themselves as neither liberal nor conservative. For the public at large, 47 percent declined to put themselves in either camp.”

[RWC] What the editorial fails to note is that the vast majority of those in the media who refuse to identify themselves as either conservative or liberal are in fact liberals. They are smart enough to know the liberal label is not popular these days so they try to hide who they are. Make no mistake about it, when most journalists use the terms centrist, moderate, and progressive, they really mean liberal. I’m willing to bet the Times would identify itself as representing a centrist or moderate position despite its clearly liberal tilt.

“One reason politics has become so polarized in the United States is that these Americans in the middle have no real voice in the political entertainment industry, which is what the vast majority of talk radio and the so-called 24-7 cable news channels really are.

“Check out any of the more popular faux news programs on cable. Their modus operandi is to bring in a designated conservative and a liberal counterpart or for the host to bring in someone with whom he or she does not agree and have them go at each other. They don’t have discussions; they have arguments.

“The other option is to dispense with the opposing views and for the guests and the hosts to have a love fest, or for the host to go off on an onanistic riff of his own.

“Whatever the setup, the more outlandish the statements, the more radical the posturing, the more vituperative the insults: hey, that’s entertainment.”

[RWC] Did you notice the editorial doesn’t appear to include the Times in “the political entertainment industry?” Other than radio and TV are audio and video, and the Times is in print, what’s the difference between a rant on TV and rants (editorials, letters, miscellaneous opinion columns) on the Times opinion pages? Have you noticed the liberal spin we see in some alleged Times news stories? We have a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

“But look at who is not represented - the large plurality of Americans (47 percent, according to the Pew survey) who refuse to identify themselves as conservatives or liberals.”

[RWC] Liberals in the media aren’t the only ones trying to hide their beliefs.

Here are a few examples.

· During one of the Democrat primary debates, a questioner asked John Kerry if he considered himself a liberal. Kerry refused to provide a relevant answer.¹

· Though Howard Dean wasn’t afraid to call himself a liberal, those who supported him always referred to him as a moderate.

· What do liberals call Republicans who vote like liberals? Moderate Republicans. Remember, the Times usually refers to RINO Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) as a “moderate” Republican.

Today, many liberals call themselves moderates or progressives, just as they used to call themselves liberals because they didn’t want to admit they were socialists. Liberalism, Marxism, progressivism, and socialism are synonyms. A liberal is a moderate is a progressive is a socialist is a Marxist.

Of the 47% of the public who claim to be neither conservative nor liberal, I believe the majority is conservative and the rest are liberal. The liberals in this group hide their identity for the same reason as mentioned above.

Here’s my theory regarding why the conservatives don’t identify themselves as such. Given the liberal bias in the media, conservatives are depicted as rich, Bible-thumping, Nazi, warmongers trying to make the poor poorer and trying to take away civil rights. Given that definition, who’s going to identify themselves as conservatives?

“These ‘yes, but’ Americans recognize that many issues are complex and do not lend themselves to easy answers. These nonideologues want practical insights, not partisan rants. They want discussions, not arguments. They want informed commentators, not glib political hacks.”

[RWC] Regardless of political tilt, I like to believe most of us want informed content. That’s why I immediately switch channels when I see one of these “debates” coming on, just as I tend to ignore rants in the Times opinion pages when I’m not dissecting those rants.

Another problem with this paragraph is when it says “many issues are complex and do not lend themselves to easy answers.” That statement is true for very few public issues. It is part of liberal mythology that issues of import are inherently complicated. You see, when you understand that most problems are not complex, you also understand you don’t need a big government to address those problems.

“They are the real silent majority, and they are being ignored not just in the media but in national government as well. They are the ones whose voices are not being heard. If anyone has a legitimate complaint about bias in the American media, they do.”

[RWC] The fact is, there is no “silent majority” that is neither conservative nor liberal. It’s a myth to deflect attention away from the old media’s liberal bias.

Finally, I believe this is also an attempt to deflect attention from Rathergate, perhaps the most obvious example of liberal bias to date.

1. Transcript: CBS-New York Times Democratic Debate; The Washington Post; February 29, 2004.