How the myth of the "Liberal Media" has twisted America into neo-con knots:

[annabanana]

http://www.alternet.org/story/145605/corporate_media%27s_cave-in_to_%27liberal_bias%27_attacks_pose_a_real_threat_to_our_democracy?page=entire
Consortium News / By Robert Parry

The right has convinced Americans that the news media has a liberal bias, lending cover to the neocon leanings of the Washington Post -- and Palin's propaganda.

In the 1980s, while a reporter for the Associated Press, I had the opportunity to chat over the phone with legendary CIA psychological warfare specialist Edward Lansdale. I was struck by something Lansdale told me about how he sold his propaganda message inside a target country. He said the goal wasn't to plant a story in a publication people knew to be under U.S. control, because their defenses would be up.

The trick, he said, was to plant propaganda in a publication that was perceived to be open and honest because readers' defenses would be down and they would be more susceptible to the message. In other words, they first had to be fooled about who controlled the outlet and what its biases were.

(followed by the whole ugly story, at link)

The idea that the media only goes "where the money is like any other business" is, and always has been laughable. It's like claiming that a cattle prod has no agenda.

This article makes it absolutely clear how the discussion has been warped away from the best interests of the American people. It also answers those who say "just turn it off". It can't be ignored out of existence, it has to be countered.

[liberal N proud]

1. And here is how they put down anyone who dare question them

From the article:
Anyone who dares speak up for facts and reason will be portrayed as a pointy-headed intellectual out of touch with "real Americans."

[ret5hd]

6. Or labeled as a "conspiracy theorist".

[KharmaTrain]

2. Part Of The "Big Lie"

Say a lie enough and people will believe it...especially when it isn't refuted.

The target has always been the media itself...a deliberate strategy that started in the 70s to "game the refs" and scream bias to get the mediatypes to "balance" their stories no matter what the facts were. It was predicated that since the media had turned against the Viet Nam War and hated Nixon (cause he constantly lied and hated the press), the media was surely "librul"...and made it easy to sell it to the "masses".

This meme picked up under Raygun who used that lie to antagonize and then neutralize any scrutiny and create a plausible defense for his supporters when the truth of his corruption came to light. The revelations of Iran-Contra were effectively countered as a "librul" media conspiracy and this helped launch the "rushbo revolution"...as well as "deregulation" of the media that enabled full corporate control. The term "librul" became a perjorative as the AM dial became infested with right wing toadies and the corporates ensured that the big lie spread far and wide.

It's turned the "journalism" of the past into "conventional wisdom" of today...the meme is entrenched and many in the "media" fear being called a "librul" more than anything else. And its allowed "networks" like faux to flourish as they claim balance based on that big lie...and the rest of the corporate media agrees with them.

[annabanana]

3. The fact that progressives, populists and, yes, even libertarians so easily

ceded this ground to the hard right is one of the biggest miscalulations in American history.

[democracy1st]

15. +1

[ck4829]

4. The myth of the liberal media isn't just bad for politics, it is also deadly as well.

From the article:

"(think back on the run-up to the war in Iraq when anti-war voices were ignored or dismissed as treasonous)"

K&R

[Mari333]

5. hell i remember being run off the road and attacked for being against that war

and now i get flak from Dems for being against both wars..

funny aint it

[G_j]

13. while we were demonstrating down town

while local talk radio was accusing us of sedition.
It was very tense at times.

[democracy1st]

17. its sad how some dems have fell in line for this Goldman Sachs bs,while this admin delivers

nothing but a steady movement to the right!

[The_Commonist]

7. That's a very good article.

Everything about our media is propaganda.
Even the entertainment stuff.
ESPECIALLY the entertainment stuff.

[Echo In Light]

8. Bill Kristol even admits the 'lib' media mythology was created by conservatives

And even William Kristol, without a doubt the most influential Republican/neoconservative publicist in America today, has come clean on this issue. "I admit it," he told a reporter. "The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." Nevertheless, Kristol apparently feels no compunction about exploiting and reinforcing the ignorant prejudices of his own constituency.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030224/alterman2

Myth: The U.S. has a liberal media.

Fact: The media are being increasingly monopolized by parent corporations with pro-corporate or conservative agendas.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-liberalmedia.htm



http://www.webpan.com/dsinclair/myths.html

[Overseas]

9. Eric Alterman's "What Liberal Media?" gives a lot of the history

of the right wing takeover of a lot of our news media.

He calls the right wing complaints that the media is too liberal "playing the ref"-- accuse the media of liberal bias and they'll bend over backward to prove they are not.

It was also an excellent cover story while the right was overturning laws about media ownership, placing more conservatives in key positions, and funding more right wing media.

The media has been pushed far to the right by now. It was a conscious concerted effort. Alterman's book at www.whatliberalmedia.com explains a lot of the history and techniques employed.

David Brock's "Blinded by the Right" discusses his experience being a right wing media operative in the 90's. It was an exciting read.

[tilsammans]

10. Facebook poll: Does it Disturb You That Obama Won't salute The American Flag

???

So "Obama won't salute the American flag"???

WTF??? :wtf: How does shit like this get out there?

Oh, yeah, it's that librul media.

[turnofffox]

11. Isn't FOX the "Mainstream Media" Now?

If CEO Roger Ailes can choose to evade tough questions by talking about his ratings, doesn't that mean they'll have to stop complaining about the media at large when, according to themselves, they are the media at large? They hardly to try hide their work. In fact, FOX is quickly becoming the de facto launching point for the GOP.

http://www.turnofffox.com/fox-fraudcasting-isnt-news-its-a-campaign-headquarters/

FOX News--the conservative place for starting a political race.

[MinM]

12. "plant propaganda in a publication that was perceived to be open and honest ..."

:radio: Would that apply to the airwaves as well? A network like NPR? :radio:

Palin, Psy-Ops & 'Condescending' Libs
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x516789

K&R

[blm]

20. and CNN, and NBCs, and ABC, and CBS...corporate media CHOSE to lie about Gore, protect Bush, spread

lies about Kerry then mute his counterattacks.

If a category 5 hurricane hadn't come along and put the corpmedia in an UNSPINNABLE situation in 2005, then Bush would still be sold as a stoic hero, and Romney or Clinton would be in the WH today.

[democracy1st]

14. K & R for later must read!

[Initech]

16. I hate to use the Nazi comparison but somewhere Joseph Goebbels is laughing at us.

[blm]

18. This article should be frontpaged here at DU.

Thanks, annab...

[lame54]

19. The Corporate Owned Liberal Media

[jobendorfer]

21. going into the wayback machine

I think there was a time when *elements* of the media were willing to openly challenge government policy and corruption.
By no means was this *ever* a majority of the media. Just one paper here, one paper there, willing to challenge the status quo.
It took a long time for public opinion to shift about the Vietnam conflict, for example. At least 6 or 7 years.
The Watergate story took two years to unfold, and the Post took a *lot* of heat in the process and they did make a couple
of spectacular mistakes.

But in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, I think the conservative forces/interests looked at what happened to them,
and instead of saying, "Well, we'd better clean out the corruption and think more carefully about starting wars", they
thought, "Well, we're never gonna let THAT happen again." And started buying up newspapers, TV stations, and what we
today call media outlets. What they learned from Vietnam and Watergate is not that they'd royally screwed up, but rather
that they had to control the narrative.

I'm not sure there's anybody in power in the Democratic Party who gets that, down in their bones. But who am I kidding?
I have to keep reminding myself that what I hear on the six o'clock news is just what G.E. wants me to hear, and the Sunday
Oregonian headline was chosen by somebody who works for a wealthy conservative.

People that lived in the Soviet Union have told me that there came a point where nobody paid much attention to the
"legitimate" media, simply because the disconnect between reality and the narrative got too high. Perhaps the same
thing will happen here.

OK, gotta get back to LaGrangians.

J.