the astroturf factory: on the conservative media apparatus - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 10-04-2010, 09:30 AM

Quote:

How bad is the political imbalance on our radio dial? Check out these stats from a Center for American Progress study: on the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive; and each weekday, there is 2,570 hours of conservative talk compared to just 254 hours of progressive talk—more than ten hours of conservative talk to every one hour of progressive radio.

from this 2007 report:
The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio

and from today's ny times, a paul krugman piece that simply restates the obvious:

Quote:

Fear and Favor
By PAUL KRUGMAN

A note to Tea Party activists: This is not the movie you think it is. You probably imagine that you’re starring in “The Birth of a Nation,” but you’re actually just extras in a remake of “Citizen Kane.”

True, there have been some changes in the plot. In the original, Kane tried to buy high political office for himself. In the new version, he just puts politicians on his payroll.

I mean that literally. As Politico recently pointed out, every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Now, media moguls have often promoted the careers and campaigns of politicians they believe will serve their interests. But directly cutting checks to political favorites takes it to a whole new level of blatancy.

Arguably, this shouldn’t be surprising. Modern American conservatism is, in large part, a movement shaped by billionaires and their bank accounts, and assured paychecks for the ideologically loyal are an important part of the system. Scientists willing to deny the existence of man-made climate change, economists willing to declare that tax cuts for the rich are essential to growth, strategic thinkers willing to provide rationales for wars of choice, lawyers willing to provide defenses of torture, all can count on support from a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultrawealthy families.

And these organizations have long provided havens for conservative political figures not currently in office. Thus when Senator Rick Santorum was defeated in 2006, he got a new job as head of the America’s Enemies program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a think tank that has received funding from the usual sources: the Koch brothers, the Coors family, and so on.

Now Mr. Santorum is one of those paid Fox contributors contemplating a presidential run. What’s the difference?

Well, for one thing, Fox News seems to have decided that it no longer needs to maintain even the pretense of being nonpartisan.

Nobody who was paying attention has ever doubted that Fox is, in reality, a part of the Republican political machine; but the network — with its Orwellian slogan, “fair and balanced” — has always denied the obvious. Officially, it still does. But by hiring those G.O.P. candidates, while at the same time making million-dollar contributions to the Republican Governors Association and the rabidly anti-Obama United States Chamber of Commerce, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox, is signaling that it no longer feels the need to make any effort to keep up appearances.

Something else has changed, too: increasingly, Fox News has gone from merely supporting Republican candidates to anointing them. Christine O’Donnell, the upset winner of the G.O.P. Senate primary in Delaware, is often described as the Tea Party candidate, but given the publicity the network gave her, she could equally well be described as the Fox News candidate. Anyway, there’s not much difference: the Tea Party movement owes much of its rise to enthusiastic Fox coverage.

As the Republican political analyst David Frum put it, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox” — literally, in the case of all those non-Mitt-Romney presidential hopefuls. It was days later, by the way, that Mr. Frum was fired by the American Enterprise Institute. Conservatives criticize Fox at their peril.

So the Ministry of Propaganda has, in effect, seized control of the Politburo. What are the implications?

Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that when billionaires put their might behind “grass roots” right-wing action, it’s not just about ideology: it’s also about business. What the Koch brothers have bought with their huge political outlays is, above all, freedom to pollute. What Mr. Murdoch is acquiring with his expanded political role is the kind of influence that lets his media empire make its own rules.

Thus in Britain, a reporter at one of Mr. Murdoch’s papers, News of the World, was caught hacking into the voice mail of prominent citizens, including members of the royal family. But Scotland Yard showed little interest in getting to the bottom of the story. Now the editor who ran the paper when the hacking was taking place is chief of communications for the Conservative government — and that government is talking about slashing the budget of the BBC, which competes with the News Corporation.

So think of those paychecks to Sarah Palin and others as smart investments. After all, if you’re a media mogul, it’s always good to have friends in high places. And the most reliable friends are the ones who know they owe it all to you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/op...04krugman.html

i think it's long past time that conservative stopped pretending that there is such a thing as a "liberal press" except as a quirk that marks the private language of the right---in material terms on the radio, it is a conservative domain. in the written press, there is a particular, self-referential space of conservative infotainment. on the web, it's like any other special-interest space. if you want to repair a hynudai, there's hyundai places; if you want to think alot about peanut butter, there are people who'll think along with you; if you want conservative infotainment, there's others who are more than willing to provide paste-ups of material from the appropriate sources or "commentary" that's almost (almost) inevitably written in conservo-speak.

the transformation of fox news away from anything that's remotely like a news outlet and into a media interface for conservative political interests has in a sense been so obvious for so long that people i think forget sometimes to pay it adequate attention. but now, as krugman points out (following on politico, which published a short piece about this last week) fox news is (a) responsible for the spread of the tea party movement and (b) an employer of almost all major conservative political candidates.

there's something wrong about that.

what do you think should be done?

personally, i think that a re-imposition of the fairness doctrine would be a good first step, a reminder that broadcast (and it's digital correlate) is a public act and comes with responsibilities for accuracy and impartiality--not "objectivity" but impartiality.
and i would like to see from there fox news shut down as a "news" operation.
i wouldn't care if fox continued to operate as conservative entertainment, but it should not be allowed the category news.

beneath the, however, is maybe a more fundamental issue: is it the case that private ownership should run rough-shod over all other considerations with a media outlet?
is it the case that rupert murdoch's hard-right politics are necessarily ok as a framework for processing infotainment simply because he owns the network?
what about the public that's served?
doesn't that come with a responsibility beyond the sale of advertising?

i expect that conservatives will be all milty freidmany and argue that there's no obligation to anyone except shareholders and that all ethical questions are settled by shareholders making a profit.

but i maintain a perhaps naive idea that if self-governance is to mean anything, people need accurate, reliable information because they need to be in a position to make actual decisions.

of course, i'm painfully aware of what a charade american democracy is in these total-domination-by-a-financial-oligarchy days of decline.

but what do you think?
should this have been allowed in the first place?
how is this not cultural domination exercised by people whose sole qualification is that they've got the money to produce programming?
who owns the airwaves?
what is news?

The_Dunedan · 10-04-2010, 10:26 AM

RB, it's no good denying that there's a significant leftist bias in major media when a large number of major media figures are now on record, caught red-handed, as being in the tank for Mr. Obama against Mrs. Clinton. Journolist was no forgery, no "astroturf" practical joke, and astonishingly enough bears out the complaint that critics of Mr. Obama have had from the beginning: that for at least a substantial portion of the MSM the correct response to any criticism of Mr. Obama, from whatever quarter, is to "call them all racist." And if you think this kind of thing stopped just because Mr. Obama won the Democratic primary, I wanna know what you're smokin'.

As for your complaints about Fox, I find myself echoing a lot of them. But you have to remember, RB, that the dispute comes down to:

Fox (assholes) vs Journolist (Everybody Else, also assholes). One allegedly dirty, allegedly conservative network versus dozens of allegedly dirty and -undeniably- leftist ones. Simply because those networks aren't leftist enough for your tastes, or for French politics, or for Canadians to endorse, means nothing. For the American climate they are leftist, and the Journolist incident shows that at least a significant number of their most powerful members are, in fact, partisan operatives working for the interests of a specific candidate and specific positions. Sorry, it's right there in their own words.

roachboy · 10-04-2010, 10:43 AM

well, here's a question (i'm in the middle of stuff, so only have time to ask it, really)...

i don't know what you're talking about with this "undeniably leftist" stuff.
the only places i know of that even tries to document this canard (and i view it as a canard) is reed irvine's ultra-right "think tank"--maybe david horowitz is on the case as well (but come on...it's david horowitz).
in both cases, the methologies used are so shot through with problems, logical and empirical, that it's almost impossible to take them seriously.

in the above, without even going into anything in much detail, there's quantitative information about the dominance of the conservatives in radio and in fox's abandonment of any pretense to being other than an infotainment outfit that shills for conservatives (almost everything krugman mentions has been known for a long time, has been documented).

so that's the question: can you point me to some data to back up this "left" or "left bias" claim?

ticking off a couple of the usual suspects: there's infotainment i've seen that's based on journalists as a population tending to vote democrat. but to correlate that to a particular mode of writing is to assume that there are no journalistic standards, that the guild of journalists is a joke, etc. i would submit that the right wants collectively to believe that is the case because in their hands, journalistic standards are a joke. and guilds--who wants wage slaves to organize anyway?

the other i've seen is usually some vague stuff about the ny times being "liberal"--but there's abundant information that shows the ny times is basically legitimatist. it approves of whomever is in power so long as that approval does not land it in the kind of problems that it's sycophantic repetition of bush-arguments for iraq did, which is in a problem of legitimacy for itself.

so my suspicion is that one or both of these will end up substituting for data....

(sorry, i was able to steal a little more time than i thought i could...but have to get back to what i was doing...apologies if this is disjointed)

Tully Mars · 10-04-2010, 11:08 AM

The "ol'anything that doesn't lean to the right is in the tank for the left" debate... horseshit. Fox news and the right leaning radio hosts have laid a lot track feeding this myth... doesn't make it anything more then a myth.

Baraka_Guru · 10-04-2010, 11:29 AM

I don't have time to comment fully at the moment, but I'm pretty sure Dunedan means to say that "left leaning" or "leftist" refers to "not conservative" in the U.S. To me, this means progressive, liberal, or Third Way...so centrist. There is plenty of U.S. media (even in radio) that is pretty much centrist...sometimes left-centre, sometimes centre-right.

As an example, I think the NYT is more of a paper of record than a "leftist" publication. In many ways the Globe and Mail is the same way. I think both papers are generally liberal, but they will take conservative and centre-right positions on some issues. I think you tend to get this when you mix journalism with op-eds and columnists and other opinion pieces.

I don't know of any actual leftist publications/media in the States. I'm sure the Marxists and socialists are churning out something, somewhere.....

Seaver · 10-04-2010, 11:37 AM

There is no left/right bias in the media... there used to be but the success of Fox has effectively voided or squashed it by now.

At this point all media is so convinced they must be fair they give too much time to batshit crazy people just to be "balanced." I'm sorry, the news should not have a flat-earther on with a scientist given equal weight and time.

roachboy · 10-04-2010, 11:47 AM

well, there's the nation. there are some alt-weekly papers in different cities, though less than there once was. the village voice seemed to me to be eviscerated some time ago...alot of others seem more entertainment listings than news outlets at this point--but there are exceptions. the chicago reader sometimes. the boston phoenix sometimes twitches back to life. i don't think there's any national-level even vaguely left news magazines. certainly nothing off the planet hearst. progressive/left programming on radio--it exists but it's negligible.

were the fairness doctrine still in place, it wouldn't matter in the way that it does that there's been massive concentration of media ownership in the states so it's not real surprising that you can have the kind of am radio numbers that are cited above if there's only 5 corporations really running the show.

fm..it's most a matter of syndication. one of the main actions that the reagan people took was to mount what has become a routine conservative smear campaign against npr, claiming that it was hostile to conservatives and using that the threaten to choke off it's funding. whence things like "marketplace."

i dont think people use netradio in the same way they use fm. narrowcasting as over against broadcasting at the level of labelling--but i dont know of anyone who's really looked at how people are using the medium. nor do i know how podcasting fits in, nor how archival functions on conventional broadcast outlet websites fit into broader patterns of usage.

[[btw if anyone's nerdliness runs in the direction of knowing about research into usage patterns of various "new media" please post cites or insights...]]

that leaves the sea of schlock that is 24/7 cable infotainment.

it's hard to know where to start with these, but my favorite quip---and i can't remember who said it (either danny schechter or d.a.pennebaker) is that cable infotainment outlets have traded an illusion of "being-there" for "being informed". but they don't even do that particularly well.

for years it's been the case that left talking heads have been shut out of opinion mangement programs because they in the main haven't worked out how to deal with the constraints of the form--and those constraints (basically talking in little sentences) are severe if you're operating from a viewpoint that's outside the nitwit center-right ideological consensus that is somehow confused for "left" by the far right in the states.

Cimarron29414 · 10-04-2010, 12:47 PM

rb,

I think what Dunedan meant was (and I think you would agree) that you fall probably farthest to the left as anyone here. Consequently, most news would seem more "right" to you than someone who is perhaps more centered. I don't mean that as a fault, just the way we all tend to process information. It makes me think of that line Gene Hackman gave in "The Birdcage" - "What about Bob Dole?" (Hackman)"No, no, no he's too liberal!" ...or something like that.

Having said that, I agree there is a monopoly on right-speaking radio stations, but I think it is demand-based. Left-speaking radio stations didn't seem to have a demand and didn't survive.

Overall, the problem exists with the notion of 24 hour news - the massive amounts of time that creates the need for news commentary, and thus the picking sides while reporting news. It was the greatest mistake the media ever made. This travesty is what has turned neighbors into "enemies" in America.

ring · 10-04-2010, 01:47 PM

The 24 hour news machine was created for profit.
Its bloated army of graphic designers, hairstylists, & ruthless skeezy stalking experts,
marches on.

Big money owns the media. Big money depends upon & has paid for keeping the
machinery in place. The act of questioning this machine has been well anticipated,
by all those in power. There is no Left in power. It's a leftover bugaboo word
that was once synonymous with communism. Cold Cold Leftovers from the cold war.

I don't believe this machine can snooker people much longer. ( I would hope)

*Top ten owners of the media:

1. Time Warner Inc.
2. Walt Disney Company
3. Viacom Inc.
4. News Corporation
5. CBS Corporation
6. Cox Enterprises
7. NBC Universal
8. Gannett Company, Inc.
9. Clear Channel Communications Inc.
10. Advance Publications, Inc.

I recall a time 'bout thirty years ago, when the S.F Bay Guardian rag was a good source.

http://www.mediaowners.com/*

The world radio conference is coming up soon.
The only way I ever received good/alternative news/commentary, for awhile
was to listen to friends' pirate stuff, but that was years ago.

P.S. Oh, and clear channel owns many of the radio spots..too.

mixedmedia · 10-04-2010, 02:08 PM

I think the most startling revelation of all is being left out of this conversation in favor of the old 'liberal media - yes! no!' debate (which in my thinking is more of a 'what makes money' phenomena rather than a 'this is the perspective we want to push' one). Besides, true liberal rags and commentary will never be a major force in this country because one has to actually read and devote energy to all 5 levels of Bloom's taxonomy of learning in order to fully engage in it emotionally. Sorry if that insults anyone, but it's true. When I hear Tea Party-ish people talk I'm not left with the impression that they are trying to appeal to folks who are, for instance, balancing the delightful imagery of cleansing America of our bloodsucking illegal immigrants with the costs and implications of actually paying (yes, taxes!) to have millions of illegal immigrants rounded up, pulled out the labor force and sent back to their country of origin. I'm not saying that there aren't conservative writers and thinkers who do try and balance these kinds of broad, complicated ideas, but nobody is listening to them on the radio, either.

That said, what are we to make of a 2012 republican presidential primary that is being shaped by a 'news' outlet that not only doesn't report the news but doesn't even bother to hide in the least its true calling - which is to be a vital force in the shaping of the 'new American culture'? Frankly, it disgusts me not only because it is happening, but because so many people in this country are ready to roll over and let it happen. Its surreal, what is happening. It's as if we have no idea how dangerous all this is to those old American ideas like, I dunno, liberty, freedom and the quaint old notion of justice.

I think this country has simply run out of vision. It's time is up. And that would be ok with me if it didn't seem that the radical reactionary front weren't steamrolling over what's left of it and calling it 'a new day.' I told my mother this morning that I feel like I am living in a sort of Coen-brothers like parallel world that would be hilarious if I were sitting at home watching it with a bowl of popcorn and it ended with the bad guy being run out of town on a rail. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's going to be the case...at least not for a while.

boink · 10-04-2010, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Overall, the problem exists with the notion of 24 hour news - the massive amounts of time that creates the need for news commentary, and thus the picking sides while reporting news. It was the greatest mistake the media ever made. This travesty is what has turned neighbors into "enemies" in America.

yeah.

roachboy · 10-04-2010, 02:47 PM

first off, cimmaron--i don't think this is a matter of opinion. there is a conservative media apparatus. it is very well funded. that well-funded media apparatus operates in a circular relation with it's demographic that reminds me quite alot of the relation that used to obtain between western communist party people and the cp press---the basis of the interaction is identity, claims about identity. propositions concerning the world articulate a subjective relation to the world. the boundaries of the official press are typically (not always, in either type) the boundaries of what is read. when one moves into "hostile" information environments, one does so armed with a host of memes or a priori labels that allow the delicate subject to ward off any untoward dissonance.

there is a clearly define set of basic propositions that define conservative political discourse. there is no corresponding set of propositions elsewhere. among the propositions is the series of claims about the "liberal press"---and this is a structuring projection, basic to the game. and folk have been onto it since the clinton period. i is an oft-repeated straw man that functions basically (a) to make the reorganization of the conservative movement seem reactive and (b) to conceal the extent to which that re-organization has jerked the right way to the right.

so now, thanks to this sort of obfuscation, the united states finds itself with a political discourse machinery based on repetition the only entry criterion for which is that you can afford to buy your own outlet or can afford to produce your own long wind-bag program. and there's little doubt that there's alot alot of money passing into the coffers of politically vile but ownership-wise powerful corporate persons like clear channel. and this is not to even start talking again (at this point) about murdoch's hilariously named "news corporation."

american political discourse has been purchased outright by the deep pockets that bankroll the ultra-right. the memes particular to the right's discourse **still** shape debate, **not** because they're coherent or helpful or anything like that, but rather because the zombie of conservative-speak continues to be animated by the repetition machine.

as for the general situation that slots into, it's hard to say, yes?
i've thought from some time that the united states is a fading empire that is collapsing by increments into it's own particular fantasy-land in which it is many things but not a fading empire.

i kinda like this quote from edward gibbons that turned up in a thomas friedman edito a little while ago.

Quote:

Everyone aimed at security: no one accepted responsibility. What was plainly lacking, long before the barbarian invasions had done their work, long before economic dislocations became serious, was an inner go. Rome’s life was now an imitation of life: a mere holding on. Security was the watchword — as if life knew any other stability than through constant change, or any form of security except through a constant willingness to take risks.

i don't know about this "inner go" business. what i know more about is that what's available for people to think follows from the categories that circulate in their world, that enable them to frame questions, organize information, think things out. and i think that the persistence of the corpse of free markety/washington consensus/neoliberalism is an aspect of this implosion of empire.

and it's a choice. the problem is that no-one of us made it. it's made for us by members of a self-appointed financial aristocracy that sees its short-term prerogatives as fundamental political questions and sees people like us as a mangement problem and is in a position to buy the tools that allow us, collectively, to be managed. to manage ourselves.

i think the game could be changed. sometimes i'm almost optimistic. not always though.

Tully Mars · 10-04-2010, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

There is no left/right bias in the media... there used to be but the success of Fox has effectively voided or squashed it by now.

At this point all media is so convinced they must be fair they give too much time to batshit crazy people just to be "balanced." I'm sorry, the news should not have a flat-earther on with a scientist given equal weight and time.

Yep.

ring · 10-04-2010, 03:05 PM

Roach. That last post of yours was passionately well written, & spot on.

I'm no where near as versed as you & others in this matter.
I'm wondering how do you/we think this game can be changed?
What would be the steps taken towards this ideal?

Willravel · 10-04-2010, 04:02 PM

The right doesn't know what the left looks like anymore. What they interpret as "left" is made up of the centrists that actually exist and the bogeyman (is there a right way to spell this?) that they're told to fear and hate. The real, actual left isn't represented in media.

I'm the left. I want single-payer healthcare right now, I want investigations into 9/11 and the human rights violations that followed, I want civilian military contractors banned from the country, I don't want a standing military, I want a Department of Peace, I want a larger school system, I want to slash the defense budget by about 90%, I want women to have the right to choose what to do with their body regardless of what their doctor believes, I want any hint of religion in government smashed (and visa versa, no government in religion either), I want FULL lgbt equality, I want an end to the current prison system and to concentrate on prevention of crime, I want the war on drugs/the poor/unwed mothers/terror/crime to all end because they're fucking jokes, and I'm going to do all of this with a balanced budget. Nowhere in any mainstream media are these views represented. Nowhere.

10-04-2010, 10:26 AM	#2 (permalink)
The_Dunedan Junkie	RB, it's no good denying that there's a significant leftist bias in major media when a large number of major media figures are now on record, caught red-handed, as being in the tank for Mr. Obama against Mrs. Clinton. Journolist was no forgery, no "astroturf" practical joke, and astonishingly enough bears out the complaint that critics of Mr. Obama have had from the beginning: that for at least a substantial portion of the MSM the correct response to any criticism of Mr. Obama, from whatever quarter, is to "call them all racist." And if you think this kind of thing stopped just because Mr. Obama won the Democratic primary, I wanna know what you're smokin'. As for your complaints about Fox, I find myself echoing a lot of them. But you have to remember, RB, that the dispute comes down to: Fox (assholes) vs Journolist (Everybody Else, also assholes). One allegedly dirty, allegedly conservative network versus dozens of allegedly dirty and -undeniably- leftist ones. Simply because those networks aren't leftist enough for your tastes, or for French politics, or for Canadians to endorse, means nothing. For the American climate they are leftist, and the Journolist incident shows that at least a significant number of their most powerful members are, in fact, partisan operatives working for the interests of a specific candidate and specific positions. Sorry, it's right there in their own words. __________________ "I personally think that America's interests would be well served if after or at the time these clowns begin their revolting little hate crime the local police come in and cart them off on some trumped up charges or other. It is necessary in my opinion that America makes an example of them to the world." --Strange Famous, advocating the use of falsified charges in order to shut people up.

10-04-2010, 10:43 AM	#3 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	well, here's a question (i'm in the middle of stuff, so only have time to ask it, really)... i don't know what you're talking about with this "undeniably leftist" stuff. the only places i know of that even tries to document this canard (and i view it as a canard) is reed irvine's ultra-right "think tank"--maybe david horowitz is on the case as well (but come on...it's david horowitz). in both cases, the methologies used are so shot through with problems, logical and empirical, that it's almost impossible to take them seriously. in the above, without even going into anything in much detail, there's quantitative information about the dominance of the conservatives in radio and in fox's abandonment of any pretense to being other than an infotainment outfit that shills for conservatives (almost everything krugman mentions has been known for a long time, has been documented). so that's the question: can you point me to some data to back up this "left" or "left bias" claim? ticking off a couple of the usual suspects: there's infotainment i've seen that's based on journalists as a population tending to vote democrat. but to correlate that to a particular mode of writing is to assume that there are no journalistic standards, that the guild of journalists is a joke, etc. i would submit that the right wants collectively to believe that is the case because in their hands, journalistic standards are a joke. and guilds--who wants wage slaves to organize anyway? the other i've seen is usually some vague stuff about the ny times being "liberal"--but there's abundant information that shows the ny times is basically legitimatist. it approves of whomever is in power so long as that approval does not land it in the kind of problems that it's sycophantic repetition of bush-arguments for iraq did, which is in a problem of legitimacy for itself. so my suspicion is that one or both of these will end up substituting for data.... (sorry, i was able to steal a little more time than i thought i could...but have to get back to what i was doing...apologies if this is disjointed) __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

10-04-2010, 11:08 AM	#4 (permalink)
Tully Mars Living in a Warmer Insanity Super Moderator Location: Yucatan, Mexico	The "ol'anything that doesn't lean to the right is in the tank for the left" debate... horseshit. Fox news and the right leaning radio hosts have laid a lot track feeding this myth... doesn't make it anything more then a myth. __________________ I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

10-04-2010, 11:29 AM	#5 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	I don't have time to comment fully at the moment, but I'm pretty sure Dunedan means to say that "left leaning" or "leftist" refers to "not conservative" in the U.S. To me, this means progressive, liberal, or Third Way...so centrist. There is plenty of U.S. media (even in radio) that is pretty much centrist...sometimes left-centre, sometimes centre-right. As an example, I think the NYT is more of a paper of record than a "leftist" publication. In many ways the Globe and Mail is the same way. I think both papers are generally liberal, but they will take conservative and centre-right positions on some issues. I think you tend to get this when you mix journalism with op-eds and columnists and other opinion pieces. I don't know of any actual leftist publications/media in the States. I'm sure the Marxists and socialists are churning out something, somewhere..... __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 10-04-2010 at 11:32 AM..

10-04-2010, 11:37 AM	#6 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	There is no left/right bias in the media... there used to be but the success of Fox has effectively voided or squashed it by now. At this point all media is so convinced they must be fair they give too much time to batshit crazy people just to be "balanced." I'm sorry, the news should not have a flat-earther on with a scientist given equal weight and time. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

10-04-2010, 11:47 AM	#7 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	well, there's the nation. there are some alt-weekly papers in different cities, though less than there once was. the village voice seemed to me to be eviscerated some time ago...alot of others seem more entertainment listings than news outlets at this point--but there are exceptions. the chicago reader sometimes. the boston phoenix sometimes twitches back to life. i don't think there's any national-level even vaguely left news magazines. certainly nothing off the planet hearst. progressive/left programming on radio--it exists but it's negligible. were the fairness doctrine still in place, it wouldn't matter in the way that it does that there's been massive concentration of media ownership in the states so it's not real surprising that you can have the kind of am radio numbers that are cited above if there's only 5 corporations really running the show. fm..it's most a matter of syndication. one of the main actions that the reagan people took was to mount what has become a routine conservative smear campaign against npr, claiming that it was hostile to conservatives and using that the threaten to choke off it's funding. whence things like "marketplace." i dont think people use netradio in the same way they use fm. narrowcasting as over against broadcasting at the level of labelling--but i dont know of anyone who's really looked at how people are using the medium. nor do i know how podcasting fits in, nor how archival functions on conventional broadcast outlet websites fit into broader patterns of usage. [[btw if anyone's nerdliness runs in the direction of knowing about research into usage patterns of various "new media" please post cites or insights...]] that leaves the sea of schlock that is 24/7 cable infotainment. it's hard to know where to start with these, but my favorite quip---and i can't remember who said it (either danny schechter or d.a.pennebaker) is that cable infotainment outlets have traded an illusion of "being-there" for "being informed". but they don't even do that particularly well. for years it's been the case that left talking heads have been shut out of opinion mangement programs because they in the main haven't worked out how to deal with the constraints of the form--and those constraints (basically talking in little sentences) are severe if you're operating from a viewpoint that's outside the nitwit center-right ideological consensus that is somehow confused for "left" by the far right in the states. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 10-04-2010 at 11:53 AM..

10-04-2010, 12:47 PM	#8 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	rb, I think what Dunedan meant was (and I think you would agree) that you fall probably farthest to the left as anyone here. Consequently, most news would seem more "right" to you than someone who is perhaps more centered. I don't mean that as a fault, just the way we all tend to process information. It makes me think of that line Gene Hackman gave in "The Birdcage" - "What about Bob Dole?" (Hackman)"No, no, no he's too liberal!" ...or something like that. Having said that, I agree there is a monopoly on right-speaking radio stations, but I think it is demand-based. Left-speaking radio stations didn't seem to have a demand and didn't survive. Overall, the problem exists with the notion of 24 hour news - the massive amounts of time that creates the need for news commentary, and thus the picking sides while reporting news. It was the greatest mistake the media ever made. This travesty is what has turned neighbors into "enemies" in America. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly." Last edited by Cimarron29414; 10-27-2010 at 10:58 AM..

10-04-2010, 01:47 PM	#9 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	The 24 hour news machine was created for profit. Its bloated army of graphic designers, hairstylists, & ruthless skeezy stalking experts, marches on. Big money owns the media. Big money depends upon & has paid for keeping the machinery in place. The act of questioning this machine has been well anticipated, by all those in power. There is no Left in power. It's a leftover bugaboo word that was once synonymous with communism. Cold Cold Leftovers from the cold war. I don't believe this machine can snooker people much longer. ( I would hope) Top ten owners of the media: 1. Time Warner Inc. 2. Walt Disney Company 3. Viacom Inc. 4. News Corporation 5. CBS Corporation 6. Cox Enterprises 7. NBC Universal 8. Gannett Company, Inc. 9. Clear Channel Communications Inc. 10. Advance Publications, Inc. I recall a time 'bout thirty years ago, when the S.F Bay Guardian rag was a good source. http://www.mediaowners.com/ The world radio conference is coming up soon. The only way I ever received good/alternative news/commentary, for awhile was to listen to friends' pirate stuff, but that was years ago. P.S. Oh, and clear channel owns many of the radio spots..too. Last edited by ring; 10-04-2010 at 02:00 PM..

10-04-2010, 02:08 PM	#10 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	I think the most startling revelation of all is being left out of this conversation in favor of the old 'liberal media - yes! no!' debate (which in my thinking is more of a 'what makes money' phenomena rather than a 'this is the perspective we want to push' one). Besides, true liberal rags and commentary will never be a major force in this country because one has to actually read and devote energy to all 5 levels of Bloom's taxonomy of learning in order to fully engage in it emotionally. Sorry if that insults anyone, but it's true. When I hear Tea Party-ish people talk I'm not left with the impression that they are trying to appeal to folks who are, for instance, balancing the delightful imagery of cleansing America of our bloodsucking illegal immigrants with the costs and implications of actually paying (yes, taxes!) to have millions of illegal immigrants rounded up, pulled out the labor force and sent back to their country of origin. I'm not saying that there aren't conservative writers and thinkers who do try and balance these kinds of broad, complicated ideas, but nobody is listening to them on the radio, either. That said, what are we to make of a 2012 republican presidential primary that is being shaped by a 'news' outlet that not only doesn't report the news but doesn't even bother to hide in the least its true calling - which is to be a vital force in the shaping of the 'new American culture'? Frankly, it disgusts me not only because it is happening, but because so many people in this country are ready to roll over and let it happen. Its surreal, what is happening. It's as if we have no idea how dangerous all this is to those old American ideas like, I dunno, liberty, freedom and the quaint old notion of justice. I think this country has simply run out of vision. It's time is up. And that would be ok with me if it didn't seem that the radical reactionary front weren't steamrolling over what's left of it and calling it 'a new day.' I told my mother this morning that I feel like I am living in a sort of Coen-brothers like parallel world that would be hilarious if I were sitting at home watching it with a bowl of popcorn and it ended with the bad guy being run out of town on a rail. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's going to be the case...at least not for a while. __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

10-04-2010, 03:05 PM	#14 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	Roach. That last post of yours was passionately well written, & spot on. I'm no where near as versed as you & others in this matter. I'm wondering how do you/we think this game can be changed? What would be the steps taken towards this ideal?

10-04-2010, 04:02 PM	#15 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	The right doesn't know what the left looks like anymore. What they interpret as "left" is made up of the centrists that actually exist and the bogeyman (is there a right way to spell this?) that they're told to fear and hate. The real, actual left isn't represented in media. I'm the left. I want single-payer healthcare right now, I want investigations into 9/11 and the human rights violations that followed, I want civilian military contractors banned from the country, I don't want a standing military, I want a Department of Peace, I want a larger school system, I want to slash the defense budget by about 90%, I want women to have the right to choose what to do with their body regardless of what their doctor believes, I want any hint of religion in government smashed (and visa versa, no government in religion either), I want FULL lgbt equality, I want an end to the current prison system and to concentrate on prevention of crime, I want the war on drugs/the poor/unwed mothers/terror/crime to all end because they're fucking jokes, and I'm going to do all of this with a balanced budget. Nowhere in any mainstream media are these views represented. Nowhere.