Wake Up America, the Media Treat Far-Right Views as Mainstream

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Wake Up America, the Media Treat Far-Right Views as Mainstream

Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly at 9:55 AM on June 4, 2009.

This dynamic produces "a deep and largely unconscious conservative bias in the media's discussion of policy."



E.J. Dionne Jr. has a very interesting column today that notes the media's "tilt to the right."

Yes, you read that correctly: If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the media, consider which arguments you hear regularly and which you don't. When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the Internet to cable television and into the traditional media. It is remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda.

The power of the Limbaugh-Gingrich axis means that Obama is regularly cast as somewhere on the far left end of a truncated political spectrum. He's the guy who nominates a "racist" to the Supreme Court (though Gingrich retreated from the word yesterday), wants to weaken America's defenses against terrorism and is proposing a massive government takeover of the private economy. <...>

Democrats are complicit in building up Gingrich and Limbaugh as the main spokesmen for the Republican Party, since Obama polls so much better than either of them. But the media play an independent role by regularly treating far-right views as mainstream positions and by largely ignoring critiques of Obama that come from elected officials on the left.

Exactly. If far-right voices are characterized as mainstream, it shifts the center of political gravity. For all the talk about media adulation of the president, this dynamic produces "a deep and largely unconscious conservative bias in the media's discussion of policy. The range of acceptable opinion runs from the moderate left to the far right."

Single-payer healthcare is considered beyond the realm of reasonable discourse. So is the notion of reducing military spending. The idea of raising taxes to improve the budget outlook is characterized as ridiculous. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/140450/wake_up_america%2C_the_media_treat_far-right_views_as_mainstream/

[mmonk]

1. Recommended.

Thanks for posting it.

[Lorien]

2. Many of us have been saying the same for a long time now

but how DO we wake up the rest of the Nation, especially when our Democratic reps do little to push back?

[groovedaddy]

13. Amen! n.t

[AndyTiedye]

3. The Liberal Media Died With the Fairness Doctrine

It's been all wingnuts all the time ever since.

[OHdem10]

4. The Liberal Media died when Reporters and TV Anchor's Salary

moved into the category--rich.

The Media used to be pretty much blue collar background.
When people like Rather and Donalson started out--guess
where they were from.

Changed as the Ivy's and other high value University provided
the Reporters. Thus High Salaries.

[pepperbear]

5. to be honest, whenever I see rush on tv, he is usually being ridiculed

but then again, for a radio personality, he is on TV alot.

[lonestarlib]

6. The media is nothing more than another Wall Street

corporate group out for all the profit they can get.

[Nite Owl]

7. It isn't just the media

our Dems go right along with this. They hold up having 'conservative values' as the goal while denying any identification with being liberal for the most part.

[Diane R]

8. And it happens on local newscasts, too. Especially our local ABC affiliate.

[tom_paine]

10. Of course it does. You want these people to risk a bad performance review?

Who would have guessed? Hitler must be laughing down in hell when he notices that his Bush Allies have come so very close to resurrecting his fascist dream under a kinder and gentler guise.

What he's laughing about is that the instrument used rpimarily to do so wasn't the bludgeon, the torture or the gas chamber...

...but the Performance Review.

It would be funny except we few who are aware in the "Land of TV and Home of the (virtual) Slave", must suffer the consequences.

My God, you are asking your local news whores to risk a bad performance review by going against the Corporation's Will.

[tom_paine]

9. From the "No shit, Sherlock. You JUST noticed?" file

:rofl:

The Corporate M$M Whores sure catch on fast, don't they?

Only 30 years too late with it, this time.

:silly:

[jotsy]

11. speaking of prostitution....

Has anybody asked themselves, in this day and age of acronyms, what we call the house of representatives?

[abq e streeter]

12. The Republican Noise Machine by David Brock, and What Liberal Media? by

Eric Alterman are good, detailed histories of how this happened