The myth of a liberal media bias

The day is nearly here when Clinton's right-wing tormentors have officially failed in their attempt to drive him from the presidency, so they are dusting off the "liberal" media whine again. Losers always gripe about the news media. Winners never do.

But it's pure hogwash. For every one definitively left-leaning personality, I can probably name many more right-leaning. On the radio, the easily namable conservatives Rush Limbaugh, Bob Grant and Oliver North come to mind. Can anyone name even ONE liberal political radio or TV commentator with a personal, nationally syndicated show, who is as well-known as any of these three?

I can count the liberal newspaper columnists on the fingers of one hand, but there are dozens of conservative ones: Bandow, Bennett, Boland, Bozell, Chapman, Evans, Glassman, Greenberg, Hart, Irvine, Jacoby, Liddy, McLaughlin, Murchison, North, Novak, Reese, Roberts, Safire, Schlafly, Sullum, Will, Bowles, Reed, Robertson, Buchanan, Buckley, Charen, Feder, Francis, Kemp, Kilpatrick, Lambro, Leo, Pinkerton, Rusher, Seamans, Snow, Seobran, Sununu, Sowell, Thomas, Tyrrell, Wildmon, Williams and countless others use the media to rant and rave that liberals dominate the media!

The allegation of a "liberal" media is simply a way for conservatives to dismiss what they disagree with. It saves thinking. Also, this myth is very handy for putting the media on the defensive, keeping it leaning to the right, so that liberal opinion is always striving for credibility within a conservatively defined framework. It keeps the debate forever a contest between right and center, while real liberalism remains shut out.

The myth of media liberalism is touted routinely by right-wing critics in an effort to censor all but their own hateful speech. To complain about how the media are dominated by liberals, Rush Limbaugh uses a radio show syndicated by over 600 stations. Reed Irvine and his associates in the right-wing media organization Accuracy in Media appear in over 100 newspapers and 200 radio stations. The fundamentalist "religious" media - featuring anti-gay, sexist, politically conservative evangelists like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson - is a $2 billion a year industry, controlling about 10 percent of all radio outlets and 14 percent of the nation's television stations.

Right-wing Rupert Murdoch's expanding empire includes the FOX network, TV Guide and the New York Post. Other conservative newspapers include the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times and the country's largest circulation daily, The Wall Street Journal.

By any conceivable measure the news media are much more dominated by conservatives than by liberals.

Alan L. Light
Iowa City, Iowa