NB #4: A Meta Look At Bias & The 'Fairness Doctrine'

My latest post for NewsBusters, examining a series of polls by Rasmussen on bias in the media, campaign finance and the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" is up. Check it out:

Polls: Public Dislikes Bias, Dems Want 'Fairness'

Even after looking at the numbers and reading liberal rantings on the interweb, I still don't get why the left is so infatuated with government regulation of the media.

The only conclusion I can come to is that they don't like free speech. They only like their speech. And they will impose speech codes at universities, and government control of the media, wrapped in euphemisms like the "Fairness Doctrine," to stifle everything else.


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NB #3: Seattle Times, MSM, & Fairness Doctrine

Post #3 is up over at Newsbusters:

Seattle Times Feels Threatened, Calls for 'Net Neutrality'

This isn't the first time we've addressed this topic (see here & here). The long and the short is that conservative talk radio (the only place conservatives used to be able to find a home) and the internet have wrested control of the "marketplace of ideas" from the liberal, old-guard media.

This is a good thing.

The smart public recognizes what the MSM has done to news reporting with their consistently liberal-biased reportage and coverage. Now, with the democratization of news and opinion writing brought on by the internet, they are losing readers and ad revenue.

MSM, RIP.

*UPDATE 14 August 10:42am PST: It seems my post was a timely one. Today Rasmussen released polls showing that the 47% of those polled want some sort of "fairness doctrine" for radio and tv and 31% want to see one for the internet.

While I now make a living "exposing and combating" liberal bias in the media, the last thing I want is the government to impose some sort of rules to govern the balance. This is not China (or Russia, for that matter), after all.

Recent polls have shown that a significant majority of Americans see a liberal bias in the media, one that favors Barack Obama, and increasingly, one they do not trust. The results of this poll are probably a response to something that has been building for years--especially coming, as it does, in the aftermath of the media cover-up of the Edwards scandal.

There are disturbingly large numbers of conservatives in favor of some sort of government imposed "Fairness Doctrine." My suspicion is that once they realized exactly what the implications of this would be (government regulation of speech), the would back off their poll responses.


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Rosie O'Donnell & the Amoral Market

We read it in the aforementioned comments over at the Seattle PI about the fairness doctrine and we read it in a post our buddy made on cougarboard.com. We refer, of course, to the hokey notion that because media outlets are controlled by supposedly "conservative" business interests, that makes the media outlets they control ipso facto conservative.

Nevermind the fact that in the last several election cycles, most businesses donated almost equally to both the Republican and Democratic parties. Where they don't give equally, it is based on who they think has the best chance of winning, not ideology. They want to support whoever will eventually be sitting on the Ways and Means Committee--regardless of political party. Ignore also the fact that few businesses are controlled by some small cabal of middle aged white males who, along with trying to gain monopolistic control of their industry, work tirelessly towards their ultimate goal of playing puppetmaster with the US government. Come on. Aren't we too old for these crazy conspiracy theories?

Capitalism, markets, business--these things are neither Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. The market is neither moral nor immoral. It seeks only profit. This guiding principle applies equally to the media. If a corporate interest believes ratings will rise and with it their profits, they will keep Rosie O'Donnell on the air until the public tires of her. If Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert or Keith Olbermann makes them money, they will continue to fund production of their shows. The same thing applies (obviously) to conservative media. These businesses didn't pull their advertising from Air America because of politics, they stopped buying airtime because Air America didn't have enough listeners.

Wake up. If there are dollars to be made, and one company will ignore the opportunity because of some ideological difference, you can bet your bottom dollar that their competitor will step in and take advantage of the opening. They don't care if Democrats, Republicans, Communists or Atheists buy their widgets, they just want to make a profit. That's business. That's capitalism. That's the amoral market.


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Fairness Doctrine & Fox News

We may not agree with Senator McCain about campaign finance or immigration or a number of other things, but we admire his stalwart support of the current surge in Iraq. McCain gets it. He understands that retreat and loss in Iraq would result in hundreds of thousands maybe millions of deaths there and a huge setback in the War on Terror. McCain is willing to lose a Presidential election because of his unpopular yet principled stand. That's what leaders do. It's unfortunate some of his fellow Republican Senators aren't willing to take the same risk with their elected position. Senator Gordon Smith, we're talking about you. Just because the Democrats are willing to play politics with the war, doesn't mean you or Senator Domenici or anyone has to. Senator Lieberman's win last fall is proof that elected officials can want to win in Iraq and persuade their constituents to re-elect them. We're embarrassed to share our alma mater with Senator Smith.

Meanwhile over at the Seattle PI, their liberal readership is debating a "fairness doctrine for media." It seems control of CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, the New York Times, Washington Post and the overwhelming majority of newspaper editorial boards is not enough for them. They want to legislate fairness in the one bastion of conservative thought--talk radio. It's telling that this legislation targets only one segment of the media. And such legislation begs way too many questions for us to even raise in this paragraph. Suffice it to say that we agree with Bruce Chapman, author of the op-ed that started the debate. If they want a "fairness doctrine," let them apply it to broadcast and print media as well as talk radio. Or they could just let free speech rule and permit the market to do its job.

One follow up item: if you read the first couple dozen comments, you'll read a lot of blather about how horrible Fox News and Rupert Murdoch are--you know, how they "distort" the news. They're afraid Murdoch and other "conservative billionaires" will control all media and give it their personal spin. Can anyone name another politically influential conservative billionaire? We can name a bunch of liberal ones--George Soros, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett--the list goes on. It's all part of another favorite liberal trope, that the rich are all conservative, white, and male. Right, and John Edwards--$400 haircuts and all--is a man of the people. We guess that's 2 out of 3.

But back to Murdoch and Fox News. The loony-left--especially those of the nutroots variety--love to bash Fox News. Not all liberals feel this way, many of them watch it, as evidenced by the fact that it regularly trounces its competition. What are we to conclude from this? That conservatism is popular despite the famously low ratings of Republicans and their leader, President Bush? Come on libs, think harder and try again. Fox News is popular because they peddle a particular brand of politics that appeals to elements in both parties--it's called populism. This explains why a true conservative outlet, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, is so insistent on editorial autonomy if Murdoch's Newscorp is successfull in its bid to purchase Dow Jones, the parent company of the WSJ. If Murdoch and Fox News were the conservative spin machine the loony left claims, you would think that the partisans over at the WSJ would positively love to be owned by Murdoch's Newscorp. But they're not. In fact, since the Newscorp offer was announced, Dow Jones ownership has been actively searching for other offers while simultaneously negotiating editorial independence in the event of a sale to Newscorp.

Another point about the wildly out of touch theory that all conservatives are rich or maybe that the rich are all conservative. The founding conservative publication, National Review, with William F. Buckley Jr. conservatism's founding father, have almost never turned a profit (homer nods: thanks Morgan) in their more than 50 years of publication. They regularly have to engage in drives to raise the funds necessary to support the magazine. Which of John Edwards' "two Americas" subscribes to National Review?

A footnote to the point about the WSJ. You'll note that we said the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. It's important and worth pointing out that their editorial bias, unlike the New York Times, does not bleed into their news reporting. That is to say, that like the rest of the mainstream media, the average beat reporter at the Wall Street Journal has about a 70% chance of voting for John Kerry in the last Presidential election. It's a fact of life that the profession is dominated by people with left leaning political beliefs.


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