As Gomer Pyle used to say, “Surprahzz, surprhahzz.” For as long as I can remember, Americans on the right have been complaining about “media bias,” about how the major newspapers and network commentators shape their coverage to advance a liberal agenda.
I think it was as early as the late 1960s that I first heard the spin on The New York Times’ motto, “All the news that’s fit to print.” It went, “All the news that fits we print.”
But now it is the liberals who are up in arms about the media. Well, not about all the media. They still are comfortable with The New York Times, The Washington Post, the newsweeklies, PBS, and network news — they’re all right. It is talk radio that alarms them, especially the extent to which talk radio is supportive of President Bush and the war against Iraq. I guess there is freedom of expression and there is freedom of expression.
Syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman captures the left’s new mood in a column entitled “Talk radio has become Bush Net.” She reports on how she “tuned in” on the “universe of talk radio” as “an act of professional penance.” She complains that “the only counternote to the drumbeat of war I heard” was from a caller, “an elderly peace activist who apparently offered himself as a hapless human shield against the host and listeners who attacked him.” From station to station she found the same pattern: “All the hosts are right-wing.” And without any relief in sight. “Some venture capitalists are trying to start a left-leaning network, but today it’s as if one medium has been thoroughly ceded to the right, and in this case pro-war, wing.”
Moreover, says Goodman, talk radio “seems to have taken up where yellow journalism left off. It bears the trademark disregard for history, casualness about facts and a penchant for propaganda.” “The old yellow haze has drifted over the territory of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. In that territory, the best defense of the right-wing media is an offense against the left-wing media. Facts are as fungible as the word ‘infotainment.’
“I am not saying that this is Talk Radio’s War,” she continues. “It’s not. It‘s this administration’s war and, like it or not, this country’s war…. But talk radio has followed the leader. That leader, George Bush, has openly rejected nuance, embraced simplicity, applied spin when facts were enough…. So too talk radio, a medium that is equally black and white, us and them, good and evil. Talk radio has become the Bush National Radio Network, a support system for the pro-war movement.”
I know, I know. The temptation is too sit back and gloat and mutter something about whose ox is being gored and how the liberals are finding out what it is like to have influential media outlets pushing a partisan point of view. One wonders if the experience will give them a clue to what we have been complaining about all these years. Or if they don’t get it and really think Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and The New York Times are impartial conveyers of the news. I suspect the latter.
But there is more that needs to be said. This is not just a case of turn-about being fair play. It is not the same. There is a difference between Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly giving their views on the events of the day and what has been going on at the networks and major media outlets all these years. Limbaugh, O’Reilly and the other right-wing talk show hosts do not claim to be objective reporters. They are commentators. They give their opinions. They do not pretend to do otherwise. In contrast, The New York Times and The Washington Post and the network news reporters tell us they are not editorializing when they deliver the news in the one-sided manner that has offended the American right since the early days of the Cold War.
But what about the left’s complaints about the Fox Network, the home of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity? Is there any truth to the claim that their news coverage is delivered with a conservative slant? Let’s be honest. There is. I guess that is why I like the network. I find it a relief to get the news reported by people who view the world much as I do. I get it, when Tony Snow and Brit Hume barely disguise a snicker when they report on a statement by Democrats such as Tom Daschle or Hillary Clinton. I see their slightly raised eyebrows when the camera returns to them after a report on Al Sharpton or Hillary Clinton. I notice that they often focus on stories that point out the hypocrisy or evasive answers of Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy — stories that seldom get covered on ABC, CBS, and NBC. I am aware that the network provides a forum for speakers from conservative think tanks who get very little play anywhere else on the dial.
So am I saying that the Fox Network is just as bad in this regard as the Big Three networks? Well, if it is better, it is only marginally better. Bill O’Reilly will swear up and down that his network does not lean to the right. Maybe he believes that. Maybe Peter Jennings and Dan Rather also do not think their broadcasts are one-sided. What is clear is that the decision-makers at Fox are more sympathetic to conservative and Republican views than those at the other networks. It comes through, in their selection of news stories and the way those stories are written. Maybe those who package the nightly news — left or right — cannot be objective even if they want to be. Maybe their political leanings will always come through.
So do the liberals have a complaint then? Well, they still have the three major networks reflecting their views. That is hardly a balance. So until the other networks become more objective, this is clearly a case where we are entitled to greet complaints such as Ellen Goodman’s with a wry smile and maybe even a slightly smug rendition of “What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.” Old sayings like that endure because they make a point worth making.
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, can be ordered directly from Winepress Publishers — 1-877-421-READ (7323); $12.95, plus S&H. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at [email protected].
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
