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Edited on Tue Oct-21-08 09:07 PM by Overseas
The TV pundits and anchors on the networks work hard to prove that they are not personally Democrats-- they bend over backward to demonstrate that they can criticize Democrats and boost up the Republicans over and over again. Gotta keep their jobs.
There was a study done on the coverage of Obama vs McPanic. Obama got more total stories but lots more negative stories than McPanic. Corporate media dutifully talked up Rev. Wright for weeks but Hagee was a couple of days. And the Murthee exorcisms were barely touched upon. The reporters have worked hard to report McPanic favorably and just briefly note what Obama has done, unless it is a negative.
More clear evidence of conservative bias: There's a storm of controversy when two of MSNBC's anchors actually sound positive about Obama most of the time and negative about Bush-McCain. It's a big terrible deal and lots of folks attack Keith O. and the right wing blowhards boycott her show until David Frumm shows up to throw mud. All that hostility toward two actual liberals only confirms what I have personally observed-- that the broadcast media has been pushed far to the right.
For the past seven years, corporate media reporters have been doing their utmost to pretend that the Bush administration makes any sense at all when it has been clearly very destructive of our economy, national security and international reputation. Bush mistakes were reported on briefly, but the bulk of the reporting time was given over to Republican talking points. Per the network owners' preferences.
Sounds like you may not have lived through the consolidation of US corporate media, from 50 companies in 1980 to only 5 conservative-owned conglomerates today. Also sounds like you may not have read the 2003 book "What Liberal Media?" by Eric Alterman, to study the concerted campaign by right wing think tanks to dominate the public discourse. It's been a dedicated multi-million dollar effort. It has done quite well. You will be amazed at the complexity of the campaign. American Enterprise Institute. Cato Inst. and others.
And actually, the campaign to push the country rightward began even earlier and so I've also read Alterman's Sound and Fury, about how things were moving in my Dad's generation.
Right wing viewpoints have dominated our airwaves more and more through an intense campaign. We may not even recognize the transition. Unless you've been watching the US broadcast media tighten up, dumb down and slide to the right for decades now. I have watched it happen.
I thought you were going to say I was in fantasy land because I ever thought things could change. Was I dreaming that with only 5 conservative-owned mega media conglomerates in control now, instead of the 50 diverse companies we had in 1980, things could ever change? How could those media giants ever be broken up?
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