I’m sorry, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. And there are no conspiracies.
As I surf around the internet, I am struck by how many bloggers and even more blog readers are convinced that the Rather/CBS scandal was a sign of a liberal conspiracy to discredit Bush and the war. There is a strongly held belief that liberal politicians and the media are working in secret and in tandom to put Kerry into power. Are bloggers in on the conspiracy, too? Read the heated comments in this post by Henry at Crooked Timber.
First, there are no conspiracies. Nobody was in the grassy knoll. The CIA wasn’t responsible for AIDs and the crack epidemic. Why do I know this? It’s human nature. People can’t keep secrets and people can’t agree. It would be impossible for all the members of the mainstream news sources and top political leaders to pull off a plan to dethrown Bush without somebody leaking information.
Second, there may be some media bias, but not that much. Yes, the top reporters and newscasters might vote for Democrats, but those news sources are owned by major corporations that are led by Republican voters. GE has some influence over the NBC news.
I’m also struck by the number of conservative bloggers who simultaneously argue that 1. bloggers are very influential and 2. the media is biased. Instapundit makes these claims all the time. You can’t have it both ways. If the members of the media are cravenly disregarding the truth to push forward their political beliefs, then they would scarsely be moved by the arguments of a conservative blogger.
Journalists go for the good story. If a Democrat does something stupid that will boost viewership, you can be sure it will be the lead item on the nightly news. I’m sure that Clinton wished he had more control over the media during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Journalists make mistakes. There might very well be some neglect in checking out stories or investigating some matters. Last week, I played around with the idea that the CBS scandal grew out of a sophomoric prank by a low level intern at CBS. (Well, I got the Kinkos part right.) Last week, Andrew Sullivan played around with the idea that Rather was just predisposed to belief the story, so he failed to fully investigate it. Not that he knowingly ran with a false story. I’m not sure how much Rather has much to do with the nightly news anymore, but Sullivan’s story is plauciable.
Journalists desire credibility more than political victories. This appearence of credibility brings readers/viewers and ad sales. If they tilt one way of the other, they lose these sources of revenue. They might tilt a little bit one way or the other, but not that much. The CBS news scandal has resulted in a huge hit in viewership at the network. The Times lost out bigtime by the Jayson Blair scandal. These periodic lapses in judgement are useful reality checks for news organizations.
Anyhow, the claims of the blogsphere as the lone source of truth in a world tightly controlled by one political ideology or another leaves me cold. I would love to know who they think is masterminding that operation. The blogosphere as media fact checkers and agenda setters is a much more sane argument.
Apt. 11d 
Open CBS postmortem thread
Feel free to comment on the admission of error on by CBS on its 60 Minutes II story on Bush’s National Guard duty — and its ramifications for the election, the mediasphere, and the blogosphere — here. Joe Gandelman has…
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I find it amazing that people are spending so much time discrediting memoes on a subject that they all say they don’t care about (namely, the “irrelevant” guard service of TheShrub(TM)).
I find it even more amazing that people out there think to take the foam-mouthed ravings of the most extremist blogs (like Little Green Footballs or Daily Kos) as worthy of serious consideration as news sources. For all the claims of media bias out there, the media is less biased than these other sources.
Anyhow, the claims of the blogsphere as the lone source of truth in a world tightly controlled by one political ideology or another leaves me cold. I would love to know who they think is masterminding that operation.
But, Laura, didn’t you know? It’s either Karl Rove or John Kerry, depending on who you ask;)…
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I agree that what happened 30/35 years ago is hardly germane to today’s elections.
I disagree that CBS has played the role of a neutral observer in the presidential campaign, however. If you could show me a record of errors that even approached a bell curve, in terms of political slant, I could be convinced otherwise. But the CBS errors always seem to fall on one side of the mean. That is cause for suspicion, if not paranoia.
The “blogosphere” will not replace major media for a long time to come. But it does provide a prophylactic by enabling less-than-name experts to point out facts that were missed or avoided. The trouble, as always, is separating the factually-based stuff from the nonsense. But it appears that we have to use that sort of filtering for our TV news now.
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>>>>If the members of the media are cravenly disregarding the truth to push forward their political beliefs, then they would scarsely be moved by the arguments of a conservative blogger.
I’ve been dissing Rathergate at every opportunity, but I’d imagine the bloggers became too loud to ignore. Could other news organizations ignore a competitor in trouble, especially when there was a critical mass of these people with web sites devoting boundless energy to the story?
The media is largely liberal. If someone can’t recognize that perhaps it’s because they falsely believe they’re in the center.
For examples, check out the Media Research Center.
Or, look into PIIPPs. Those are “pro-illegal immigration puff pieces.” Without hardly trying I’ve noticed about 8 newspaper articles that present sympathetic portraits of illegal aliens and how our laws need to be changed to accomodate them: http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/001959.html“>http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/001959.html
When you look at the first sentence of each article, you have to wonder what’s going on because they all look pretty much the same. The ones I’ve spotted have appeared in everything from the NYT to small papers in Racine WI. Here’s just a taste:
Brownsville TX Herald: “Even with her new high school diploma, Lupita Rojas’ future will take her back to the fields where she used to pick tomatoes, she said as she cradled her baby.”
Newsday: “Mirna ibarra, a junior at Central Islip High School, didn’t come to the United States the typical way…”
Seattle Press-Intelligencer: “Aurelia Baltazar Loza slipped over the Mexican border into the United States with three of her children not long after her husband of 25 years was killed in a traffic accident”
All of those go on to advocate for illegal immigration.
No liberal media indeed.
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I’m also struck by the number of conservative bloggers who simultaneously argue that 1. bloggers are very influential and 2. the media is biased. Instapundit makes these claims all the time. You can’t have it both ways.
Yes, you can. It is quite possible for the “media” to have bias which, among other things, causes them to occassionally accept questionable stories from certain paradigms. Bloggers can influence the media by pointing out the most brazen instances of such bias. Those situations because they are brazen will have clearly stated facts to counter the media’s sloppy work. Because the bias, especially in those extreme cases, is not intentional, the media will respond and correct their errors. Because the errors were brazen, the media must respond or lose the veneer of an impartial authority.
However, there are many other ways that bias can manifest itself. These effects of bias are potentially more pervasive and more subtle, will remain. The blogosphere can complain about those things, but because the case is much less clear, a press that does not innately share the view that they themselves are biased has no need to heed the claims of bloggers.
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“Journalists desire credibility more than political victories” Well they have been thinking that they already have so credibility they started to get arrogant.
Of course there are bias we just have to read the issues that go to the front page and those that not, or worst dont get covered at all. Why only one journalist in WSJ tried to dig corruption in UN-oil for food program? maybe some tried but the editor said “what?! do you want 4 more years of Bush?!”
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flaime writes — I find it amazing that people are spending so much time discrediting memoes on a subject that they all say they don’t care about (namely, the “irrelevant” guard service of TheShrub(TM)).
Well, it fits in well with some bloggers’ world view. It is proof in their minds of the liberal conspiracy. Of course, the liberal side of the blogosphere has made it all worse by trying to defend CBS. Just admit it, for God’s sake. CBS screwed up. Move on. Laugh about it.
I do think that bloggers are useful fact checkers for the media. But let’s remember that the most famous case of the bloggers prompting the media to cover an issue was the Trent Lott scandal. The bloggers pushed the media to report on embarrassing remarks of a Republican. The media misses stories, no doubt, but their mistakes are often bipartisan.
Another common mistake is to lump all the media together in one group, rather than seeing them as individuals. The media is made up of reporters, editors, managing directors, and owners. Keeping their jobs and increasing sales of the paper is what motivates them. Political ideology is no match for Monica Lewisnky’s blue dress.
The media is also comprised of a wide variety of news sources. Even if CBS is tilted to the left, the FOX news channel tilts the other way. It all balances out.
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‘Why only one journalist in WSJ tried to dig corruption in UN-oil for food program? maybe some tried but the editor said “what?! do you want 4 more years of Bush?!”‘
This would be the same WSJ that has the editorial page that drove Hubbel to suicide, then blamed CLinton for it. This is the same editorial page that claimed Clinton was tied to drug smuggling in Mena, Arkansas ?
For the wingnuts, the Oil For Food Scandal is their ‘Get out of Jail Card’. NO matter that there’s been no new news on this for months, no matter that the actual information (as opposed to rumor) that we have is limited, no matter that the NY Times has published an article on it, no matter that corruption in dealing with Third World Countries and corporations is older than Ziggurats, the right wing will continue to yell bias with Oil For Food till the final crack of DoomsDay.
Meanwhile, who would realize that Judith Miller of the NyTimes published dozens of artcles about WMDs in Iraq in the lead up to the war. That after the war, she published more articles, including a rather breathless one about hidden WMDs being found. Who would realize that just recently, $8.3 billion (about as much money as was allegeldy skimmed over a decade in Oil For Food), was found unaccounted by auditors in the CPA records ?
FWIW, The Rather memo story was an outrage. Forget bias, it was unbelivably sloppy journalism and at least some liberal bloggers did themselves no favor trying to stick to the memos after the gaping flaws had been revealed. Its kinda like conservative bloggers still claiming that WMDs had been moved to syria.
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re: bloggers v. the media. All the media sources are not in competition with the bloggers. They are in competition with each other. As soon as the facts came together, ABC and NBC and CNN gleefully reported on CBS’s error. Peter Jennings had a big smile on his face as he read their report of the issue. It brought them more viewers.
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Laura, I don’t think one can assume that just because media enterprises are corporations, owned in some cases by other corporations, that they are necessarily Republican-influenced. First, there *are* some CEOs who are on the left, particularly in media, finance, and technology. But more importantly, top management in most companies will tend to leave a business unit or subsidiary *alone* as long as it is doing reasonably well in meeting its financial committments. I am fairly sure that top management of GE, in particular, cares far more about the P&L of NBC News than about any opinions expressed…
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“Second, there may be some media bias, but not that much. Yes, the top reporters and newscasters might vote for Democrats, but those news sources are owned by major corporations that are led by Republican voters.”
If you are going to regurgitate this myth, how bouth you name em, how bout Disney? Viacom? From the NY SUN:
Viacom’s chairman and chief executive, Sumner Redstone, is a self-described “liberal Democrat” and a prolific donor to Democratic campaigns. Of the company’s 13 board members, eight contribute primarily to Democratic candidates and party committees. Two other members of the board, Joseph Califano and William Cohen, held cabinet posts under Democratic presiden
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um erg, I wouldn’t use the term “wingnuts” seeing how’s you say Hubbel was driven to suicide by a paper. Fine, u use wingnuts, i’ll just call u nuts. just plain ole nuts.
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‘Two other members of the board, Joseph Califano and William Cohen, held cabinet posts under Democratic presidents’
Cohen is a Republican. And Disney, incidentally, is the organization that refused to distribute F911.
‘um erg, I wouldn’t use the term “wingnuts” seeing how’s you say Hubbel was driven to suicide by a paper’
It is an established fact that an increasing series of attacks by right wing papers (including the WSJ’s editorial page) increased Hubbell’s depression, and was a contributing factor to his suicide. But you can continue to believe that he was killed by Hillary Clintons love child if you want to.
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david writes: I am fairly sure that top management of GE, in particular, cares far more about the P&L of NBC News than about any opinions expressed
Absolutely. P&L is everything. Not just to GE, but the management of the NBC who has to answer to GE. If NBC gets sloppy with its news coverage or even becomes too overtly partisan and loses ad revenue, you can be sure GE will say something about it.
I read one author who claimed that GE got directly involved in one of NBC’s news magazine shows, but we just moved and most of our books are still in boxes. I can’t get the citation for you.
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I keep asking this question every time conservatives whine about media bias, and I’ve yet to hear a good answer. How can media be biased if it’s controlled by the free market laws of supply and demand?
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dan rather is the editor of 60 mins.
and mary mapes broke the prision scandal
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