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Title: What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News by Eric Alterman ISBN: 0-465-00176-9 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.24 (239 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Depressing, imperfect, and absolutely necessary
Comment: I can't help suspecting that the only people likely to read "What Liberal Media?" are those who, like myself, already agree with Alterman's thesis. Nonetheless, the fact that someone finally saw fit to write a book on this topic is encouraging in itself. As Alterman notes in the opening pages (and as some of the one-star reviews found here predictably demonstrate), the myth of The Liberal Media is so widespread that many people who should know better tend to assume it must be true simply because it's the only opinion they've ever heard anyone express. This well researched and thorough book could prove to be one of two elements that finally put a stop to such assumptions (the other, of course, being the mainstream media's blatant contempt for Al Gore and leniency toward George W. Bush throughout the 2000 campaign and beyond, which Alterman documents in considerable detail).
Alterman tackles head-on most of the "evidence" conservatives regularly trot out as proof that the media is liberal. Perhaps most importantly, he debunks completely the 1992 Freedom Forum poll showing that most journalists voted for Clinton that year (it used a sample no legitimate pollster would approve of, and made no effort to probe beneath the surface with respect to why the respondents voted as they did). Also singled out for incomplete but convincing criticism are two recent books that play to the popular perception of the media as liberal, Bernard Goldberg's "Bias" and Ann Coulter's "Slander." I say "incomplete" not as a criticism of Alterman, but because a complete study of the inaccuracies found in those books would require a book longer than this one. Alterman does provide a generous sampling of false claims found in both screeds, most notably Goldberg's well-publicized claim that the media routinely labels Republican politicians as conservative but does not similarly refer to liberals as such. (As Alterman demonstrates, the claim was thoroughly baseless and Goldberg himself was unable to offer any evidence to support it on a rare occasion when he was challenged, but many media outlets repeated it as fact all the same. Several other examples of this phenomenon appear throughout the book.)
For the most part, Alterman plays as well on offense as on defense, proving his own points as convincingly as he disproves those from the other side. It can be downright depressing for a liberal to read just how broad and deep the media's pro-Bush bias really is, although this is unlikely to be a surprise to anyone who has studied the issue in the past few years. Much of Alterman's evidence was previously available from alternative sources like the Daily Howler and consortiumnews.com, but he provides more context and perspective than I've seen elsewhere; and it really is refreshing that a mainstream publisher has finally offered us a book like this one. To Alterman's credit, he doesn't spare Bill Clinton and Al Gore from criticism for their often inept responses (or, in many cases, their lack of a response at all) to the malicious coverage they so frequently received during their administration and the 2000 campaign. The scope of his study is quite thorough, encompassing the media's relation to big business; the clout held by the religious right in both the media and the Republican Party; coverage of the Florida recount; and (most importantly in my view) the far right's disgusting manipulation of the aftermath of September 11 for its and Bush's benefit, a feat it could never have accomplished without help (or at least complacency) from the media.
Alterman does make one crucial mistake, in my view. A critical part of his argument is the idea that most journalists do in fact lean to the left, but that as a matter of journalistic principle and as a result of bullying from the right, they try too hard to be objective and inadvertently report with a conservative bias. It's a very plausible theory, but Alterman shoots himself in the foot with the examples he provides. He singles out abortion and the death penalty as examples of issues that are often subject to a genuine liberal bias in the media. But he fails to even mention the media's complicity the mid-1990s controversy over 'partial-birth abortion,' a deliberately inflammatory term invented by the anti-choice movement for a procedure for which demand is nearly nonexistent except in cases where the health of the mother is at stake. Regarding the death penalty, he seems to see the recent coverage of false convictions in Illinois and inebriated lawyers in Texas as somehow insensitive to the families and loved ones of murder victims, for reasons he doesn't explain very elaborately. The chapter in which he makes this misstep raises some larger questions about 'politically correct intolerance' and genuine bigotry without offering any satisfactory answers to them, and a key portion of Alterman's argument is weakened somewhat as a result.
But even with that admittedly significant weak point, this is a well researched, convincing study of the truth about bias in the modern media, and it's sorely needed. If nothing else, Alterman deserves credit for addressing an issue most people have long since given up on even thinking about. Here's hoping it inspires some of us to start doing so.
Rating: 5
Summary: open your eyes and listen
Comment: One of the silliest myths endlessly promulgated by the right wing is that the "mainstream media" (nowadays that means mostly TV and radio) has a liberal bias. This book blows that myth out of the water better than any other.
The ONLY clearly liberal program I find in the mainstream media is Bill Moyer's NOW once a week on PBS. Talk radio is clearly dominated by right wing extremists. TV news seems mostly interested in maintaining ratings and so broadcasts what they think will bring in the most viewers (e.g. programs on missing children).
Mainstream media in the U.S. is now, unfortunately, dominated by a few large corporations, and the situation is getting worse by the day. The people who run these corporations are not liberals. Indeed, some of them have a clearly right-wing agenda (e.g. Rupert Murdoch). The people who write stories for these corporations are not eager to offend their bosses.
The blame lies clearly with the public, as the book points out: "Because most members of the public know and care relatively little about government, they neither seek nor understand high-quality political reporting and analysis. With limited demand for first-rate journalism, most news organizations cannot afford to supply it, and because they do not supply it, most Americans have no practical source of the information necessary to become politically sophisticated. Yet it would take an informed and interested citizenry to create enough demand to support top-flight journalism...."
Rating: 4
Summary: more people should read this
Comment: What Liberal Media is a little dry at times but you can learn a lot from it. One of the best chapters was the chapter on the 2000 election. Alterman pointed out how the media would distort facts to make it look like Gore was lying when he really wasn't. A good example of this was with Love Story. Alterman discusses the different types of media such as print and tv punditry. The newspapers who endorsed a candidate chose to endorse Bush by a large margin. Another reviewer asked what the media has said that is nice about Bush. I will tell you. The media always talks about Bush as being moral and a good man even if you disagree with his politics. No one ever seems to question this. Just because a person talks about how moral they are does not mean they are morally superior. Bush was not morally superior to Gore. He is not morally superior to Kerry either, and he definitely is not braver. It is not brave to send other people to get killed. Bush knew that by joining the National Guard at that time he wouldn't have to fight.
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Title: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken ISBN: 0525947647 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 29 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth by Joe Conason ISBN: 0312315600 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 25 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Bushwhacked : Life in George W. Bush's America by LOU DUBOSE, MOLLY IVINS ISBN: 0375507523 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century by Paul Krugman ISBN: 0393058506 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception by DAVID CORN ISBN: 1400050669 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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