for Clinton in 1992 than did this demographic category: “Registered Democrats.”
CNN’s Peter Arnett said of the survey: “Howard Fineman [of Newsweek] probably voted for Clinton. I voted for Clinton, but, you know, when it gets to the vote, you do it, and then you go on with your journalism.
I don’t think the two are really related.” Clinton’s press secretary Michael McCurry feigned shock, saying, “If these guys actually voted for Clinton, why don’t they actually be nicer to him in print?” 3
One of the rare voices of sanity was Wolf Blitzer, who said that if the survey was accurate, “It would suggest that there is a problem.” 4
The wildly disproportionate percentage of liberals in the media is not an insignificant point. The media determine how the news will be served up, how the players are characterized, what news to report, and what news not to report. The same clichés, biases, and outright lies are constantly reinforced through the media sound chamber.
One of the blabocracy’s favorite lies is that the media is not liberal. They love this one, hauling it out at the slightest provocation, polishing absurd “studies” proving the media is—if anything—conservative, and running stories on “The Myth of the Liberal Media” 5 and “the so-called liberal press.” 6
A “study” analyzing the New York Times’s coverage of the 2000 presidential race conclusively proved that “this ‘liberal bastion’ published 50 percent more anti-Gore articles than anti-Bush, and nearly twice as many pro-Bush articles as pro-Gore.” 7 Claims of “conservative bias” in the media at large are amusing oddities. But a claim that the New York Times has a conservative bias can be explained only by the sheer joy liberals take in telling lies. This is how liberals flaunt their massive control over news in America. The fact that everyone knows they are lying is part of the fun. They take insolent pleasure in saying absurd things, like college radicals giving revolutionary speeches at their parents’ dinner table: We will raid their wine cellars and have their women!
The Times hasn’t endorsed a Republican for president for half a century. Though the Times generally issues endorsements as if it is the Oracle of Delphi, in 1972 the Times endorsed George McGovern early and enthusiastically, and he carried one state. When vast majorities of Americans voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the New York Times was endorsing Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis. Even the last winning Democrat the paper endorsed—Bill Clinton—never got as much as half the country to vote for him. (Indeed, through its tried and true method of mechanically endorsing every Democrat, the Times hasn’t endorsed a presidential candidate who got as much as 50 percent of the vote for over a quarter of a century.)
So, maybe the Times is “pro-Republican” compared to the Berkeley Student Union. But there is no possible calculus under which the Times could be called pro-Republican compared to “Americans”—arguably a more relevant control group.
It ought to tell you something that the “conservative bias” claim is too preposterous even for the New York Times to level. The Times regularly interprets standard Republican positions as fanatical, religiously based racist hate crimes. But even it can’t screw up the nerve to say the media have a conservative bias. Instead, self-respecting journalists, like those at the Times, create a smokescreen for the liberal monolith by viciously attacking any mention of a “liberal media.” The very idea is treated as a wacky theory hatched by troglodyte right-wingers. With some leftists babbling about “conservative bias,” the position of the reasonable middle is simply to deny that there is any slant whatsoever.
Peter Jennings declared: “CNN is mainstream media,... ABC, CBS, NBC are mainstream media. And I think it’s just essentially to make the point that we are
CNN’s Peter Arnett said of the survey: “Howard Fineman [of Newsweek] probably voted for Clinton. I voted for Clinton, but, you know, when it gets to the vote, you do it, and then you go on with your journalism.
I don’t think the two are really related.” Clinton’s press secretary Michael McCurry feigned shock, saying, “If these guys actually voted for Clinton, why don’t they actually be nicer to him in print?” 3
One of the rare voices of sanity was Wolf Blitzer, who said that if the survey was accurate, “It would suggest that there is a problem.” 4
The wildly disproportionate percentage of liberals in the media is not an insignificant point. The media determine how the news will be served up, how the players are characterized, what news to report, and what news not to report. The same clichés, biases, and outright lies are constantly reinforced through the media sound chamber.
One of the blabocracy’s favorite lies is that the media is not liberal. They love this one, hauling it out at the slightest provocation, polishing absurd “studies” proving the media is—if anything—conservative, and running stories on “The Myth of the Liberal Media” 5 and “the so-called liberal press.” 6
A “study” analyzing the New York Times’s coverage of the 2000 presidential race conclusively proved that “this ‘liberal bastion’ published 50 percent more anti-Gore articles than anti-Bush, and nearly twice as many pro-Bush articles as pro-Gore.” 7 Claims of “conservative bias” in the media at large are amusing oddities. But a claim that the New York Times has a conservative bias can be explained only by the sheer joy liberals take in telling lies. This is how liberals flaunt their massive control over news in America. The fact that everyone knows they are lying is part of the fun. They take insolent pleasure in saying absurd things, like college radicals giving revolutionary speeches at their parents’ dinner table: We will raid their wine cellars and have their women!
The Times hasn’t endorsed a Republican for president for half a century. Though the Times generally issues endorsements as if it is the Oracle of Delphi, in 1972 the Times endorsed George McGovern early and enthusiastically, and he carried one state. When vast majorities of Americans voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the New York Times was endorsing Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis. Even the last winning Democrat the paper endorsed—Bill Clinton—never got as much as half the country to vote for him. (Indeed, through its tried and true method of mechanically endorsing every Democrat, the Times hasn’t endorsed a presidential candidate who got as much as 50 percent of the vote for over a quarter of a century.)
So, maybe the Times is “pro-Republican” compared to the Berkeley Student Union. But there is no possible calculus under which the Times could be called pro-Republican compared to “Americans”—arguably a more relevant control group.
It ought to tell you something that the “conservative bias” claim is too preposterous even for the New York Times to level. The Times regularly interprets standard Republican positions as fanatical, religiously based racist hate crimes. But even it can’t screw up the nerve to say the media have a conservative bias. Instead, self-respecting journalists, like those at the Times, create a smokescreen for the liberal monolith by viciously attacking any mention of a “liberal media.” The very idea is treated as a wacky theory hatched by troglodyte right-wingers. With some leftists babbling about “conservative bias,” the position of the reasonable middle is simply to deny that there is any slant whatsoever.
Peter Jennings declared: “CNN is mainstream media,... ABC, CBS, NBC are mainstream media. And I think it’s just essentially to make the point that we are
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