"I admit it — the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." William Kristol, New Yorker, 5/22/95
Articles and Essays
The Price of the Liberal Media "Indeed, if an honest history of this era is ever written, one of the most puzzling mysteries may be why the American liberal community – with all its wealth and expertise in communications – sat back while conservatives turned media into a potent weapon for dominating U.S. politics."
What a 'Liberal Media' Might Look Like Let’s imagine a fictional cable network called LNN – the Liberal News Network. What might the morning news on such a channel be?
Conservative Op-Eds Voices Dominate In American Newspapers In addition to dominating talk radio, the right wing also dominates Newspaper Op-Ed columns.
The Myth of The Liberal U.S.A. Media — Conservatives Unfairly Dominate Todays Media
This article is a bit dated, but still an excellent of overview without a lot of fancy academic language.
The conservative media tilt has become a dominant reality in modern U.S. politics. This imbalance was not an accident. It resulted from a conscious, expensive and well-conceived plan by conservatives to build what amounts to a rapid-response media machine. This machine closely coordinates with Republican leaders and can strongly influence – if not dictate – what is considered news."
Where Did the Worst of Bush's Cronies Go?
They went to work for the Corporate media
they’ve become pundits. And unlike ex-Democratic pundits, who tend to want to prove their mettle as independent analysts by attacking their ex-friends using Republican talking points — demanding to know why presidential candidates do not wear flag pins and are BFFs with Louis Farrakhan and the like — they keep up exactly the same shenanigans that landed this country in the screwed up place they left it. Admit it, it’s impressive.
Lies, Conservatives and Statistics How Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, an organization that manufactures myths about the Liberal media, works its propaganda magic on a very gullible public. Each time you hear another tirade against "the liberal media," you will often find this well funded lie-factory in the background, somewhere.
Videos
VIDEO: Rise Of The Conservative Media – By MediaMatters for America Media Matters releases new video showing right-wing media's leading role in driving movement. Very, very powerful. You must show it to everyone you know.
Illuminating Humor
Myth of the Liberal Media — by Bartcop
It's 10 years old (yes, Barbara Olson is dead), but this is still a classic that illustrates just how absurd the "liberal media" claim really is.
What would happen if Dateline did an unflattering portrait of Bush?
Books
What Liberal Media? — by Eric Alterman
This book will be required reading for anyone in politics or journalism, or anyone curious about their complicated nexus.
From Publishers Weekly While the idea that a liberal bias pervades the mainstream media has been around for years, it gained new currency with the 2001 publication of Bernard Goldberg's Bias and its 2002 successor, Ann Coulter's Slander. Alterman (Sound & Fury; Who Speaks for America?; etc.) now seeks to debunk the notion and goes so far as to argue that bastions of alleged liberalism like the Washington Post and ABC News "have grown increasingly cowed by false complaints of liberal bias and hence, progressively more sympathetic to the most outlandish conservative complaints."
The Republican Noise Machine — by David Brock.
Still as current as ever, this was the seminal work on Right-Wing Media and how it corrupts democracy. Aa vital read for any citizen.
Related Reading:
List of Progressive Rants & Primers
Conservative Media Rogue's Gallery (coming soon)
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