What "Liberal Media"?

 

Our friend Dave Miller posed a question that we need to address. It is one of the most important questions in our country at this time.

“How does the left communicate with a section of the electorate that has decided to ignore all media outlets because, as one sailor said, "they all lie, so why bother?"

The left has very little power in corporate media. Mother Jones isn't the dominant newspaper and NPR isn't the primary source of broadcast news for Americans.

There are a few voices of reason in corpo-media, but the executives are more interested in profit than in informing the public. Thus the "horse race" becomes the game, instead of focusing on the clear and present danger to our democracy.

Combine this with the fact the right successfully pushed their first Big Lies that corporate media is "liberal media" and liberalism is next to communism. It was only a matter of time when "Rigged election" would be their ultimate Big Lie.

Bias is not inherently evil, unless the bias supports evil. As Stephen Colbert put it, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias".

Since Reagan allowed Murdoch, Limbaugh and other extremists to be given free rein over the fairness doctrine, far right partisan media have taken full advantage of their leverage over truth.

Their captive audience was immediately indoctrinated to believe their far-right partisan media was truly "fair and balanced". This was their Big Con. "Everybody is lying to you. We are your only source for truth".

“Goebbels 101” became the MO for them, while the rest of corporate media decided to move to the right instead of holding a bias for reality. This isn’t recent. In the frenzied war fever before Bush invaded Iraq, Phil Donohue’s highly rated show was canceled by MSNBC because he had too many guests who questioned the official lies about WMD’s and Saddam’s “connection to al-Qaeda”.

Look what they are doing to Biden now, while giving Trump and his agenda a pass. If Biden had spoken as LOUDLY as Trump in the debate, we wouldn't be hearing any of the unqualified pundits' "medical expertise" on Biden's mental acuity.

Corpo-Media is tolerating intolerance and promoting false equivalence.

And most of the country thinks THAT is "liberal bias" from the "liberal media".

When Christiane Amanpour delivered the commencement address at the Columbia University School of Journalism she said:

“Journalism is a public service, first and foremost. Journalism is about the truth, first and foremost. Be truthful, but not neutral. Both-siderism, (on the one hand, on the other hand,) is not always objectivity. It does not get you to the truth. Drawing false moral or factual equivalence is neither objective nor truthful. Objectivity is our golden rule. And it is in weighing all the sides and all the evidence. Hearing everyone, quoting everything, but not rushing to equate them when there is no equating. And look at the damage that has done.”

But here we are. The corporate media is rigged in favor of the right. The Electoral College is rigged in favor of the right. The Senate is rigged in favor of the right. And the Supreme Court has been stolen and stacked for the right. They obstructed justice by numerous delays and proceeded to elevate a convicted felon and insurrectionist to the ballot where he is likely to win an election. To top it off they have granted him immunity from further crimes. 

There can be no happy, just, or democratic outcome from this slow moving, decades long, authoritarian coup.