Oh, that’s right! The liberal media was never more than a figment of Teapublican imaginations and conservative radio nutjobs!
As I pointed out in a previous post, following the demise of the Fairness Doctrine, conservative talk radio has overwhelmed progressive and moderate talk radio. And the wackos on Fox News Channel have dominated cable news with Teapublican talking points. Those who rely on these stations for news are, instead, given an earful of conservative opinions, half-truths and outright falsehoods…all presented as absolute facts.
Moreover, the effect of the attacks on mainstream media has been to cause them to dance around the truth in order to avoid even more attacks from the right. As a result, the mainstream media tend to downplay or overlook stories that contrast with the conservative narrative.
But you dont have to take my word for it. A recent examination of Sunday morning TV news programs by Think Progress found that, between June of 2011 and February of this year, 70 percent of the guests were Republican. And the latest survey from the Pew Research Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism (www.journalism.org) found that news coverage has been slanted against President Obama. The study states, Of all the presidential candidates studied in this report, only one figure did not have a single week in 2012 when positive coverage exceeded negative coveragethe incumbent, Democrat Barack Obama.
No matter. As long as legitimate news services refuse to pass along conservative crackpot theories as news, conservatives will continue to rant about bias. And conservative writers and media hosts will continue to claim that they alone are presenting the truth that the mainstream news media wont.