OPINION & EDITORIAL
Media actually lean right
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by Tony Schulz
Monday, September 10, 2001
I would like to counter Nick Passe’s article that explained the media’s liberal bias. This article was the perpetuation of a myth. The truth is the media has a conservative bias.
First, corporate conservative media is paid for by advertising. Mainstream media is a corporation selling a product to a market. That market is business, mostly very powerful business with very conservative profit-driven interests.
Passe does have some evidence common to the right’s argument, such as the number of journalists that voted for Bill Clinton. But this doesn’t really matter, because the debate and political situation is already very conservative. There may be some social liberals left, but many political scientists and Democrats alike consider the Democratic Party economically conservative. (I personally don’t understand calling yourself a liberal at all if you are going to consider yourself economically conservative.) Our political spectrum might be this way because politicians also have a product to sell the market of business: their votes.
So Rush Limbaugh, Tony Snow, and Bill O’Reilly get their own shows, and Thomas Friedman’s spewing is marveled at, but you never read commentary from an anarchist or hear ranting from a communist in our “fair and balanced” media. Business gets its own channels and sections; where is the labor station covering the workers’ strike from the street?
Finally, focus on the owners and the CEOs who are becoming fewer and more powerful all the time. This small group with their interlocked conservative values has the most to say in framing the debate; plus, most mainstream media has a parent company, and these outlets have to serve that interest.
In the end, as long as the media is controlled by business or is a business itself, it is going to have a conservative bias.
