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Why news isn’t really liberal: business
2005.06.03 — Business | Television | News | Satire | by BB Rodriguez
"I'm Lou Dobbs and I hate stinking wetbacks." [official site] |
To sell news, the news media has to make every story surprising. And since all news is about change, that means that change itself must be surprising. And there are only two kinds of surprise: the good kind and the bad kind.
Guess which sells better.
Treating every breaking story as either bad news or good news doesn't make the news media liberal or even genuinely conservative. It makes the news media—politically-speaking—an extremist group. Exporting jobs is very bad for workers and must be stopped. Cheap imported goods are very good for consumers and must be encouraged. That kind of thing. The fact that these are inextricably linked is not important. The newsman has no memory. Well, except for nostalgia.
Nostalgia ensures that everything a long time ago was much better than it is today and you should read all about it. |
Nostalgia ensures that everything a long time ago was much better than it is today and you should read all about it. Nobody writes about the baffling mystery of why crime is down and what we should do to fix it.
"Good evening; I'm Grant Liverspots. On tonight's show: Ten things you can do to raise the crime level and put our police officers back to work."
Nutritious liberalism on the bottom;
delicious conservatism on top
[N]ews organizations are run by... people who are nothing if not rich and opinionated... and frequently undereducated. |
Most news reporters are pretty liberal. After all, they tend to be youngish, well-educated, well-read, well-traveled, and not rich. That's a recipe for liberalism. Simmer and season to taste. But news organizations are run by conservatives—people who are nothing if not rich and opinionated... and frequently undereducated (William Randolph Hearst, Rupert Murdoch, Sun Myung Moon... and I rest my case. Wait, let's add Time Warner).
As a result, the direction reporters get from above is to go negative. Any change from the status quo is bad. Find the bad news and stay on it, wringing every last tear out of the distraught victims. Then find another angle—no matter how valid—and debate the merits of each side for as long as possible. Liberals love victims, of course, and have every sympathy for for them, so they accept the assignment happily and everybody wins. Except the public, of course.
Lou Dobbs just plain hates foreigners. He probably strangles Mexican hookers on the weekends. |
Some reporters are themselves conservative, of course. How many times do you have to watch Lou Dobbs before you realize that he absolutely fucking hates foreigners? He hated NAFTA. He hated amnesty for illegals. He hates the trade deficit. He hates the exportation of jobs. He hates Bush's work-permit idea for illegal aliens. He hates foreign languages. It's all he talks about. Lou Dobbs just plain hates foreigners. He probably strangles Mexican hookers on the weekends. That's a story to investigate.
[B]ad people usually win. After all, somebody has to win, and the news media only says bad things about everyone. |
The drive to find the surprising bad-news story, dwell on it until it's played out, reminisce about how good things used to be, and then move on to the next one is a money-maker, but it makes news organizations basically conservative. It characterizes the world as a place where only bad things happen, where the only trend is downward, and where bad people usually win. After all, somebody has to win, and the news media only says bad things about everyone.
On the other hand, it's in the nature of news organizations not to condemn people or organizations outright or in mass. This is what leads to complaints that the news media is liberal toward gays and other fringe groups... as if showing two dudes dressed as Abe Lincoln kissing and showing off their assless chaps is going to help the cause of gay-parent adoptions.
In this respect, government officials have a right to complain. The news coverage they get is almost never really positive (except from their ideologically-aligned pundits), and government programs are never any good or successful until someone tries to mess with them. Then the nostalgia kicks in, but never before.
After all, when is the last time you saw an in-depth report on how great the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps is, or what a great job the Postal Service does of getting mail across the country in a couple of days for pennies? Seriously, what else can you buy for 37 cents? A piece of gum?
Tysto trivia: Yes all three organizations still exist!
The best of all possible stories
Any news that supports the idea that we are winning is great, and any news that supports the idea that we are losing is also pretty damn sweet. |
The big exception to all this is, of course, war. The news media loves a good war because bad things happen to good people every day. American soldiers and innocent civilians are hurt and killed every day. What could be better?
Best of all, the news media finally gets to openly have an opinion; and that opinion is that we should win. Any news that supports the idea that we are winning is great, and any news that supports the idea that we are losing is also pretty damn sweet. I envision a future war in which the news media claims that the American military lost every battle and yet somehow still won the war.
Actually, I think that's what happened in Panama.
f e e d b a c k
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