A couple of URLs for you, Christopher.
JFK, Jr.
My own view of media overcoverage of this event:
Message 10605486
Conservative Charles Krauthammer's column ("Heir to Camelot"), cited in the above post:
washingtonpost.com
The One-China Policy
Columns by Jim Hoagland and Fred Hiatt, the two principal foreign policy columnists for the ("liberal") Washington Post:
Hoagland, "Get Real With China" (July 18, 1999)
search.washingtonpost.com
Fred Hiatt, "The China Muddle" (May 30, 1999)
taiwandc.org
Hoagland, “A Stand on Taiwan” (March 21, 1999)
taiwandc.org
Of especial relevance to your post (which sees the debate as either/or, Clinton Administration vs. Jesse Helms)is the following paragraph from the Hiatt piece:
China's growing economy,
and the U.S. investment that Washington had encouraged,
created a powerful business lobby that opposed any rethinking
of U.S. policy. That more than anything moved Clinton from
his 1992 campaign opposition to "coddling" Beijing's dictators to
his 1998 willingness to slap down the aspirations of democratic
Taiwan while traveling in Shanghai. "Under Clinton,
commerce became the dominant motivating force behind
American policy," Mann writes.
Question: is the "business lobby" "liberal" or "conservative"?
Time Magazine and Time Warner
Comment about Time Magazine from a previous post:
...Even publishers that may have little to say about content have a great deal to say about overall approach (i.e., bias), which is even more important. This is especially true of news magazines like Time, Newsweek,, etc., where the "personality" and even writing style of the individual reporter (who often does not even have a byline) is completely submerged in the magazine's "Collective Personality."
Message 10597911
And if you really think that individual reporters are what determines that "Collective Personality," let me refer you to this discussion of the giant international media conglomerates (including Time-Warner), from a "far left liberal" or "radical" site:
fair.org
Finally, let me say, Christopher, that I am tired of this subject. I was tired of it even before you and I got into it. One of the reasons I am tired of it is because I have learned it is one of those "hot button" issues that makes otherwise nice and reasonable people turn angry, aggressive, and, yes, even arrogant. (It also attracts roving hyenas to the scene.)
At the same time, it is really a non-issue, in my opinion, because the terms used in it ("liberal" and "conservative") tend to dissolve on careful analysis. And to make it an issue, the whole complex range of viewpoints on practically every conceivable subject has to be reduced, squashed into, a dichotomous scheme conforming to current political passions.
If we are going to argue about the media, I personally would prefer to examine the thesis about the role & ideology of the media conglomerates, outlined in the above-cited source. That thesis may be way off base, but at least it raises some provocative and relevant questions, IMO. A sample paragraph:
A specter now haunts the world: a global commercial media system dominated by a small number of super-powerful, mostly U.S.-based transnational media corporations. It is a system that works to advance the cause of the global market and promote commercial values, while denigrating journalism and culture not conducive to the immediate bottom line or long-run corporate interests.... The global commercial system is a very recent development. Until the 1980s, media systems were generally national in scope..... In some ways, the emerging global commercial media system is not an entirely negative proposition. It occasionally promotes anti-racist, anti-sexist or anti-authoritarian messages that can be welcome in some of the more repressive corners of the world. But on balance the system has minimal interest in journalism or public affairs except for that which serves the business and upper-middle classes, and it privileges just a few lucrative genres that it can do quite well--like sports, light entertainment and action movies--over other fare. Even at its best the entire system is saturated by a hyper-commercialism, a veritable commercial carpetbombing of every aspect of human life. As the C.E.O. of Westinghouse put it (Advertising Age, 2/3/97), "We are here to serve advertisers. That is our raison d'etre."
Joan
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