Since you speak of the "Liberal Media"...
"Liberal Media" is a term which is the creation of the conservative groups which make it their business to crank out what seems to be an endless stream of conservative- biased, emotionally-laden, truth-twisting, and sometimes downright dishonest information to rank-and-file ideologically-conservative Americans. This stream of propaganda may take the form of newsletters, articles, press releases, and/or conservative-voter mailings. Although the information may take many different forms, there are four things which they have in common:
1. They come from groups with non-rightward-biased, innocuous-sounding names.
2. They are comprised of information which has been slanted such that it plays on the emotions and fears of the average conservative American.
3. They come from "foundations" or groups which are headed by people who have a vested financial interest in keeping the rightwing American population stirred up and angry.
4. In one form or another, either overtly or covertly, they ask for money.
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L. BRENT BOZELL AND THE MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER
In doing research for a series of articles on the radical religious right, while wandering around the internet, I accessed through a link a group called "The Media Research Center." "Media Research Center." Now, that name sounds pretty good, doesn't it? It sounds like it's a consumer-information group which is a Center for doing Research on the Media. However, the MRC is actually a shamelessly propagandizing disinformation organization, which produces several different publications. The MRC was founded by L. Brent Bozell, who was the Chairman of Finance for the 1992 Pat Buchanan Presidential bid. I think just that information alone would pretty much give a big hint that this group's focus is NOT simply doing research; it's for manipulating public opinion of the media. Here is what Bozell's web page says about him.
*** "Founder and Chairman of the Board of the Media Research Center, Mr. Bozell runs the largest media watchdog organization in America. Founded in 1987, the MRC publishes three award-winning newsletters, MediaWatch, Notable Quotables, and MediaNomics. He is the co-editor of And That's the Way It Isn't: A Reference Guide to Media Bias; and his Center has published other books including Pattern of Deception: The Media's Role in the Clinton Presidency; How to Identify, Expose and Correct Liberal Media Bias; and Out of Focus: Network Television and the American Economy. Founder and Chairman of the Parents Television Council, Mr. Bozell leads the only Hollywood-based organization dedicated to restoring responsibility to television programming. The PTC annually publishes the Family Guide to Prime Time Television which aids parents across the country in making informed viewing decisions for their children. Mr. Bozell founded the Conservative Victory Committee in 1987 and serves as its President today. An independent multi-candidate political action committee, the CVC played a major role in the 1994 elections helping elect dozens of conservative candidates.
In 1992 Mr. Bozell served as National Finance Chairman for the Buchanan for President campaign; during the Reagan years he was Finance Director, and later President of the National Conservative Political Action Committee." ***
Before you go assuming that the Media Research Center is some crackpot rightwinger organization, let's look at a partial listing of the media programs which have either had an MRC spokesperson on their program, carried on of the MRC articles, used the MRC research, or recently covered MRC events:
TELEVISION
* CNN, CNN Morning News
* CNN, Crossfire
* CNN, Showbiz Today
* Fox Morning News
* CBN, The 700 Club
* CNBC, The Charles Grodin Show
* CNBC, The Cal Thomas Show
* CNBC, Equal Time NewsTalk Television
RADIO
* The Rush Limbaugh Show
* The G. Gordon Liddy Show
* The Ollie North Show
* The Mary Matlin Show
* The Blanquita Cullum Show
* USA Radio Network
* The Bob Grant Show
PRINT
* USA Today The Washington Post
* New York Times U.S. News & World Report
* Wall Street Journal New York Post
* Los Angeles Times Washington Times
* Insight Investor's Business Daily
* American Spectator TV Guide
* Boston Herald San Diego Union-Tribune
* Virginia Pilot Roll Call
* News & Record World
In addition, the MRC notes that the "MRC staff also took to the convention floor for both national conventions. MRC News analysts set-up offices in San Diego, and worked by fax and CyberAlert e-mail in Chicago, publishing a daily four-page newsletter exposing the liberal agenda in media coverage of the conventions. Every morning, for both conventions, the newsletter was distributed, faxed, e-mailed, and even hand-delivered to thousands of journalists, newspaper editors, broadcast media, and talk radio hosts across the country."
We're not just talking a hand-cranked ditto rag, here. The Media Research Center is a professional organization, which utilizes all forms of media---from printed, to radio, to TV, to electronic--- to aggressively advance it's ideas and distribute it's slanted stories. These folks are very serious, and obviously well-funded.
The MRC founder and Chairman of the Board, Brent Bozell, is one smooth operator. I don't know if he coined the term "liberal media bias," but he sure has capitalized on it. His MRC publications aggressively advances, on a regular and reinforcing basis, the myth that the media is liberally biased. To accomplish this, Bozell's publication is chock-full of slanted stories, selective quotes, and blatant disinformation, supported by lots of official-sounding information- gathering groups. The majority of the MRC research quotes, however, come from groups and organizations which are also overtly conservative-biased. The MRC's research quotes from non-conservative-biased groups, from what I can see, are either taken out of context, or spun in such a way as to support illogical conclusions.
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ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Anyway, God only knows how, I ended up on their mailing list after visiting the MRC web site. A month or so later, out of the blue, I received a very slick marketing packet for the MRC---complete with multiple requests for donations, of course. Although at first I was horrified to be on such a mailing list, I actually have enjoyed being a party to the propaganda that the MRC distributes. So join me as I go through my first marketing packet from the Media Research Center.
What thrilled me immediately, was the 5" x 7" glossy, SIGNED, picture of Oliver North. I can tell you, some lucky friend is going to get one surprising Christmas present this year.
The MRC's main publication, MediaWatch, details the examples the MRC has "collected" of the "liberal-biased media." .....Let's just say that we ALL now know one big source of the fantasy "liberal media bias" propaganda. Looking through the MediaWatch... here's an article about how the media unfairly focused on Gingrich's ethics violations and the subsequent phone call which violated a promise he had just made to the Ethics Committee, instead of focusing on the real culprits: the Florida couple who taped the telephone call. And here's a "good-riddance" article about Bryant Gumbel leaving the Today show. To quote the article, Gumbel's Legacy's, lead-in sentence, "After 15 years of NBC's Today no longer provides a platform for Bryant Gumbel to spout his liberalism." Here's one of the MediaWatch's ideas of Gumbel's blatant liberalism: "January 31, 1990: "It is certain the President won't mention the T word, and yet taxes are very much at the heart of what all our potential solutions are. How long can both sides pretend that a hike's not needed?"
Going a little further in MediaWatch, we find an article, as one would expect, about Paula Jones. In this article, it's stated that one of the reasons Jones' story hasn't been taken seriously by people is because the media, due to it's "squeamishness and ambivalence about printing stories about the sex lives of politicians," is not printing the truth about the Jones case. AHEM.
And here's a fact I bet you've not heard before (quoted from MediaWatch's article entitled, An End Run Around Bias): "Post-election polls determined that most Americans <<my emphasis>> realize the media favor liberal candidates and policies, leading many to turn to the internet to get political news." The polls? A Washington Post poll taken immediately after the Nov. election, in which 62% of DOLE VOTERS considered coverage of their candidate to be "too negative." DUH. No kidding? What did they expect from DOLE voters? But even so, "62% of Dole voters" may be a majority of Dole voters, but certainly not "most Americans." Then the article went on to quote polls by such groups as the Pew Research Center for People.
If you want to stay ahead of the game, you can sign up for CyberAlert, which is a news service run by MRC which sends email messages detailing the "latest Clinton scandal developments ignored by the media." Just send your email address to mrc@mediaresearch.org, or sign up at the MRC homepage, www.mediaresearch.org.
Also in the packet sent to me by the MRC is an issue of Notable Quotables, which has the latest "outrageous sometimes humorous quotes in the liberal media."
Then there's MediaNomics. We should all feel safe in knowing that it's not just the media liberal bias towards politics about which Bozell's Media Research Center is concerned... The MRC also is ever-vigilant for the media's fantasy CORPORATE liberal bias. MRC describes MediaNomics as "The Free Market Project, a division of MRC, is working to uncover the media's liberal bias towards private sector corporations and industries. The FMP's newsletter, MediaNomics, reports monthly on the FMP's programs. MediaNomics research appears frequently in such newspapers as Investor's Business Daily..."
There also was a copy of NewsFlash, the MRC's monthly members' report. Here's my favorite article out of it: Women's Magazines = Left-Wing Political Weapons? MRC PROVES IT." Pardon...are these the same magazines that advise women on how to catch and keep a man? HARDLY liberal media, by anybody's measure.
Looking further through NewsFlash..... Here's something really disgusting: a picture of Bozell and Gingrich, and Gingrich's fawning quote, "I would say that the MRC and Brent Bozell are remarkably important. There are days when their reports are a breath of fresh air...."
But here's an equally obnoxious NewsFlash article: Media Balance Up In Smoke: How the Media are Distorting the Tobacco Issue, which is based on "a new Free Market Project Special Report." As we remember, the Free Market Project is put out by the Media Research Center. We can only hope that the Free Market Project Special Report is as much of a shining example of journalistic neutrality and integrity as is the MediaWatch and MediaNomics.
And last, but not least, in the MRC NewsFlash is an article which says that based on an article in The Washington Times (the newspaper started by ultra-rightwing Rev. Moon), Dole was less than 650,000 votes away from winning presidency! Hard to believe, isn't it? And wait until you see the math! Call me suspicious, but I think I can see at least one reason that the GOP is so reluctant to support quality education.
Okay...the last three things in the packet from MRC were:
1. A 38-page slick, glossy booklet called "Team Clinton: The Starting Line-Up of the Pro-Clinton Press Corps." It has pictures of all of the "culprits," including Sam Donaldson and Gumble.
2. A refrigerator magnet that reads: "I Don't Believe the Liberal News Media."
3. A bumper-sticker that reads: "I'm Fed Up With The Liberal Media."
I think that with the bumper sticker I'll take "Liberal" and cut-and-snip until it reads "Bare." "I'm Fed up with the BARE Media" makes far more sense. While I could go for a bare Bryant Gumbel, a bare Sam Donaldson is completely out of the question.
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So that's an example of the type of conservative-voter-targeted propaganda put out by groups such as Bozell's Media Research Center. It's no wonder, with this type of disinformation being aggressively pumped out, that the myth of "liberal media bias," even though it is not supported by any actual facts, continues to grow and spread.
And it's also a very good example of what we all learned from Hitler about his tactic, The Big Lie. If you say something often enough, to enough people, even if it isn't the truth, it becomes reality in the mass consciousness. That Hitler used this so successfully, and that the campaign finance chairman for Pat Buchanan uses this technique so successfully in the Media Research Center, somehow seems to make sense.
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