What happens when the MSM become conservative?
The war in Iraq, as well as many other issues, would be reported differently if the MSM were conservative and/or Republican, which they are famously not, by 90/10 or 80/20 at least. (You will recall the Jeff Jacoby column showing MSM journalists in the Beltway 12:1 for John Kerry [dicussed here among other places], which otherwise can be stated as 92/8). The current imbalance was created by Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the USSR and its promise of a Marxist paradise, and other trends and events that have had their day; it is not an ineluctable feature of American society. So the situation can change: in a country where conservatives outnumber liberals 3:2, this change is likely, if not inevitable.
Imagine the world today if the MSM were conservative. We agree with Evan Thomas that the MSM have the power to portray reality to give one side in the ideological debate a minimum 5% up to a 15% boost. Their power, though diminshed, is still real. Imagine how red America might be if the 90/10 imbalance flipped the other way.
Yet we ought to think twice about what we wish for. The 90/10 liberal nature of America’s elite newsrooms reflects groupthink, which is lazy, self-satisfied, and really not thinking at all. The power of the conservative movement comes in part from its having to be on its toes. As TIME noted about Powerline last year:
How can a blog that caters to the right, the political majority who in fact run this country, make Republicans feel as if they’re part of a proud, persecuted minority? The villain here isn’t the political opposition. It’s the left-leaning Mainstream Media, a looming specter that is vilified so routinely on Power Line, it’s referred to in shorthand as the MSM.
On balance we think the country would be better off with a conservative consensus governing the MSM, but when we look at how enmired in a fantasy world are people like Pinch Sulzberger, it gives us pause.
November 4th, 2005 at 2:54 am
There was a story reported some years back about a Chicago (Tribune?) editor who supposedly during a staff meeting told his reporters that the paper’s (leftist religionist) position on the environment was too important to be changed by new facts. A reporter remarked how easy it was to get her (reporter’s) views out by selective interviews- “you can get someone to say whatever you want.”
Until the, politics first -”information withheld or distorted ” ceases, America will be continue to be subject to the same propaganda techniques as the peoples behind the “Iron Curtain.”
We need a concerted attack on the MSM for failing to uphold their responsibility under the first amendment – that is, to provide the voters of America with unbiased and as complete as possible, information, from which they can make rational choices.
There remains no other reason to continue to provide them protection of their speech. (including special legal-tort{?} protection!)
Where are the rent-a-mob busses in front of their corporate headquaters demanding such, everytime they stray? Why wasn’t CBS’s license withheld for a month for the fake memo?
They will succumb to that kind of pressure.