The mainstream media: dominated by liberals?
George McClure’s article in the Denver Post a few weeks ago, “Another liberal column. Right?” was mentioned on Democratic Underground today. McClure briefly refutes the “liberal media” canard this way:
The mainstream media in this country are dominated by liberals.I was informed of this fact by Rush Limbaugh. And Thomas Sowell. And Ann Coulter. And Rich Lowry. And Bill O'Reilly. And William Safire. And Robert Novak. And William F. Buckley, Jr. And George Will.
And John Gibson. And Michelle Malkin. And David Brooks. And Tony Snow. And Tony Blankely. And Fred Barnes. And Britt Hume. And Larry Kudlow. And Sean Hannity. And David Horowitz. And William Kristol. And Hugh Hewitt.
And Oliver North. And Joe Scarborough. And Pat Buchanan. And John McLaughlin. And Cal Thomas. And Joe Klein. And James Kilpatrick. And Tucker Carlson. And Deroy Murdock. And Michael Savage. And Charles Krauthammer. And Stephen Moore. And Alan Keyes.
And Gary Bauer. And Mort Kondracke. And Andrew Sullivan. And Nicholas von Hoffman. And Neil Cavuto. And Matt Drudge. And Mike Rosen. And Dave Kopel. And John Caldara.
It’s an impressive list, but he forgot Michael Barone, Arnoud deBorchgrave, Neal Boortz, L. Brent Bozell, Mona Charen, Lynne Cheney, Chuck Colson, Jerry Falwell, Thomas Friedman, Maggie Gallagher, Bernard Goldberg, Jonah Goldberg, Jack Kemp, John Leo, G. Gordon Liddy, David Limbaugh, Mary Matalin, Michael Medved, Peggy Noonan, Marvin Olasky, Michael Reagan, Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly, Ben Shapiro, John Stossel, Emmett Tyrrell, and Armstrong Williams. Conservatives cannot come up with a comparable list of liberal commentators with such an overwhelming media presence - due to conservative domination of the very same media - yet the "liberal media" myth persists.
Eric Alterman examined the SCLM (so-called liberal media) in his 2003 book What Liberal Media? and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting publishes some excellent media criticism (both on their website and in their magazine Extra!), but those people continually shouting "liberal media bias" (think talk radio and Fox “News”) seem impervious to the facts.
UPDATE: These fellow conservatives should be added to the previous lists: Andrew Bacevich, Harold Bloom, David Boaz, Stephen Carter, John Derbyshire, Dinesh D’Souza, Newt Gingrich, Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Christopher Hitchens, Mark Hyman, Tim LaHaye, John Lukacs, Chris Matthews, Charles Murray, Richard John Neuhaus, David Noebel, Fred Phelps, Norman Podhoretz, Ralph Reed and Jay Sekulow.
Many more names could be added, but I think the point has been made quite adequately.