Liberal Media Bias
We all know it exists and have noticed it at various times in passing, but here I’m going to chronicle what I hear of it. While walking my dog each day, I listen to a good bit of NPR and local public media from across the country (through the Public Radio Player app); I’ve concluded that NPR presents a fairer view of the facts than other venues such as CNN and MSNBC, but here I’ll keep a record of various tidbits of bias I hear from the media in general and journalists in particular.
The list is mostly for my own reference, but if you see anything you think should be included, feel free to send me an email at info@libertariangirl.com.
- Ongoing, including November 2, 2009, NPR’s “Marketplace” special report
teaser by Ky Risdal for news on the stock market
Is it really bad for the stock market to be down? NPR thinks so (as do most media outlets, to be fair). A downturn means it was a “bumpy day,” etc. Of course, if one knows anything about the stock market, one knows that people can short stocks and make money when stocks go down, especially in commodities markets. In fact, the best players of the stock market do just this. Therefore, a bad day for one person is a good day for others. And to be honest, some stocks deserve to be down and some companies deserve to fail. Perhaps a fairer and better marketplace requires a resettling of stock value every once in a while. It’s not a bad thing.
- October 29, 2009, NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross
, critic-at-large John Powers
John Powers “reviews” the documentaries Schmatta and American Casino. He starts off well, saying they might give you a better perspective on today’s economy than Capitalism: A Love Story. But he throws in some opinions in there that are biased at best. Maybe that’s OK since he’s a movie reviewer and paid to be biased, but I’ve read many newspaper print reviews that comment on political movies, not necessarily directly on the ideas behind them.
Powers brings us these gems of objectivity:
“Starting with the early sweatshops, filmmaker Marc Levin shows how the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 — in which 146 female workers died after being locked in their burning workplace — helped jump-start the entire American labor movement, leading to widespread prosperity.
It was only the labor movement which led to prosperity, it had nothing to do with the Industrial Revolution, women entering the workforce and gaining more rights over time, people and companies becoming more progressively accepting of what is right as with slavery and many things, America becoming a world power after two world wars, companies, Henry Ford, the American public and hardworking immigrants, or the workers themselves. It was only the labor movement that produced prosperity. No word on why it’s not doing that now.
Now, Powers’ review of American Casino:
American Casino links the crisis to three things. The ideological belief in unregulated capitalism embraced by the likes of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan;…”
We can stop with that because this is even more of a gross mischaracterization than the above. To say that Alan Greenspan had a belief in “unregulated capitalism” is misleading at best and in truth quite false. It’s like saying Abraham Lincoln was a believer in maintaining slavery. He might have said things like that at one point, but when it came down to it, he freed the slaves. In the same way, whether Alan Greenspan was an Ayn Rand devotee at one time is irrelevant to what he actually did. Greenspan did what Ayn Rand would have hated by actually helming a central bank and controlling a huge part of commerce, the central currency, interest rates, and monetary policy. Sure, he caused a lot of the problems we are experiencing today. But what he did was not “unregulated capitalism” as his entire job involved regulating and trying to control a financial system, and remember, at the time, he was cheered on by the media as an economic hero beloved by all, Democratic and Republican.
we’re reminded of the great paradox also revealed in American Casino: Capitalism is the greatest engine for creating growth and wealth the world has ever known — even Karl Marx was impressed — but if you don’t control it, capitalism can be as destructive as it is creative. It creates good jobs for American garment workers, then takes them away, invents seemingly magical ways of letting people buy homes, then throws them out. Nothing is immune from its genius for creative destruction, although one thing does seem to remain constant. The system is far kinder to bankers and CEOs than to those who cut fabric or teach in our schools.
We’ve been controlling capitalism since about the days of Karl Marx, so to say all these problems are the result of not controlling capitalism is pretty disingenuous (notice how the controllers are never blamed for not getting the controlling right, just the “un”-controllers). Powers doesn’t mention that America’s teachers can buy garments inexpensively because they’re made in Bangledesh, not America, and that a big reason for that is the previously praised unions which asked for too much in the balance between employer and workers (case study: GM). He doesn’t seem to feel any joy for foreign workers who now have jobs and can feed their extremely impoverished families; he just meditates on the apparently severe wrong that has happened– doesn’t everyone know that once a job is created by the capitalist job gods, it can’t ever be taken away, forever and ever.
No mention of the government’s (or Greenspan’s) complicity in the subprime crisis, just again, lamentation that once a subprime loan has been extended, no paperwork and all, it must not be taken away or that is a *sin* of capitalism and capitalism only.
I could repeat Powers’ last sentence– “The system is far kinder to bankers and CEOs than to those who cut fabric or teach in our schools” — but there are two differences: I’m talking about the government system, and I’m unequivocally right. Sure, there is room for nuance (those CEOs who expect taxpayer dollars to bail them out are the lowest of the low, I agree), but Powers gives none. I mean seriously, not a harsh word for government in a piece about our current economic crisis?
- October 29, 2009, NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross
, guest Timothy Egan, New York Times columnist
Egan talks about how Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, best friends and President and head of the National Forest Service respectively, skinny-dipped together in the Potomac while discussing policy. “Imagine if Karl Rove and George Bush had skinny-dipped together in the Potomac while discussing plans to deregulate banks?”
Why is this bias? I’m all for jokes about George W. Bush, but there’s so much rich material to work with that one might as well include a kernel of actual truth when making such a joke (especially if you work for a seemingly objective news organization). The joke would have been more appropriate and truthful if it was about plans to invade Iraq or line the pockets of Halliburton; as it is, the primary president of recent years to spend time deregulating banks was Mr. Secretary of State, Bill Clinton. To imply otherwise on a national radio show is buying the line Obama has tried to sell us in his campaign and presidency, that Democrats had nothing to do with causing the current financial crisis when that’s certainly not the case.
- November 2, 2009, NPR’s “Marketplace” special report
-report on various bailouts and CIT collapse
An analyst from the Cato Institute is introduced as being from “the libertarian Cato Institute”. No other analyst or economist is identified with a description of political beliefs.
- March 4, 2010, promo for St. Louis Public Radio’s St. Louis on the Air morning show
Veteran St. Louis news anchor Don Marsh talks about the next edition of his show, focused on state budget cuts and various politicians’ plan for them — the politicians are “sharpening their budget knives.” At first, this may seem innocuous, but why a violent metaphor used for budget cuts that would never, ever be used for budget increases? Just imagine an anchor saying: “The politicians are working on ways to increase the budget- they’re sharpening their knives aimed at your take home pay!” No, they’d instead focus on the wonderful, fabulous programs that would be instituted by the budget increases.
- March 15, 2010, “Talk of the Nation” with Neal Conan
- March 17, 2010, NPR top-of-the-hour news brief, 1pm EST.
Usually, NPR “Talk of the Nation” host Neal Conan is disarmingly polite with all his guests (not always with his callers, but with his guests, he borders on Emily Post). The one exception has been Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, who says that Guantanamo Bay detainees, falling under military law, should not be subject to the Constitution or rules governing criminal courts. (You can listen and decide for yourself.) I’ve heard Conan invite criticism of the Supreme Court on his show before, but notice how he pointedly states that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the detainees “deserving” representation, then interrupts Thiessen repeatedly over the next few questions as Thiessen tries to make his points only to disingenuously ask two minutes later, “So this time you accept the Supreme Court?” (has Conan ever questioned whether Obama disagrees with all the Supreme Court’s rulings since he disagrees with the “Citizens United” case?). The disrespect comes through more in the radio version than the written transcript. I’ve never seen him treat a guest like this which is why I took note of it (and this is after he began the interview by showing how Jon Stewart didn’t let Thiessen get a word in edgewise on “The Daily Show.”)
Neal Conan is apparently both an expert on Constitutional debates as well as the Geneva Convention! Who knew? But in matters where he could speak up even more easily in question of liberal guests, he does not confront them with his own opinions so blatantly. This is a clear case of liberal bias on Conan’s part. Notice how every person deserving a lawyer is a “great American tradition” ((not disputing that although it certainly doesn’t apply today in practice which Conan doesn’t even seem to know (why are Guantanamo detainees any more deserving of needing a lawyer than a rural schizophrenic man who hit a police officer and sits in jail due to lack of a lawyer?), and the idea only originally came into practice in the 1950s)). Notice how he sets up this idea: how could anyone deny a great American tradition to terrorists?!?
This one is particularly egregious because except for the few public radio stations, like San Francisco’s, that air the BCC News roundup at the top of their hours, this was heard on all NPR affiliate stations across the country as well as many other radio stations that lease NPR’s news updates. The news brief ended by talking about the Federal Reserve, that interest rates might be kept low which would increase the number of American borrowers and thus (virtually a direct quote here) “help the US economy.”
Excuse me, how did we get in this financial crisis again? Didn’t it have something to do with Americans trying hard to live above their means? How did this myth of borrowing and spending as the way to economic prosperity get started, and why is NPR continuing to perpetrate it?
- March 25, 2010, “Fresh Air with Terry Gross”
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center discusses “right-wing extremist hate groups” with Terry Gross. Just listen to the superiority Potok feels toward these groups, which might be fine other than the fact that he mixes all of them all together so that the small minority of them that are absolutely crazy– Holocaust deniers, let’s say– are listed first, along with “those who are just against taxes,” which in truth are the vast majority but he treats as a minority. According to Potok, everyone who is against the government or taxes is seething with extremist hate. They only hate Democrats (again, lumping thousands of groups together as one causes this misconception). Jimmy Carter is right that they’re only motivated by racism, etc. etc. Every single one is an anti-Semite (of course). All are engaged in conspiracy theories. It’s a “wild mix of ideas that’s hard to sort out.” I think there are right-wing extremist groups, but they shouldn’t be lumped together with people who simply (justifiably) learned from, say, the Holocaust not to trust the government.
Tea Partiers are “victims” because they have been led into thinking national healthcare will have bad consequences.
For example, Potok describes some of my own aspects (I think the government should be smaller, I think that Obama has socialistic tendencies, I think that taxes should be minimized, I think the Tea Partiers are exercising their freedoms of assembly and protest as any good citizen should, I think everyone should have a right to own guns– if you read my site you know all this already!) — yet, he knows the ins and outs of the Stormfront forum site and what these neo-Nazis do on there, and I don’t because I abhor those people and their views and would never visit the site! Potok has spent enough time around the site to get a good impression of what their activities are. His rhetoric just lumps everyone in together, with virtually no difference made between a grandma protesting at a Tea Party and a Stormfront neo-Nazi. They’re all “angry, angry ideas” whose ideas are going to be “tracked and exposed” by Potok.
- August 1, 2010, “Talk of the Nation”
Host Neal Cohen is often very hostile to any caller who tries to, say, go against the government line on inflation, but there’s a guest host for a few weeks, so this is a bit of “Talk of the Nation” bias that can’t be attributed to Cohen for once. The guest is Princeton “professor” Cornel West (the guy Larry Summers, as president of Harvard, accurately implied wasn’t academic enough; Summers was forced to leave Harvard as a result). West’s spiel is all about race, race, race. He has some relatively decent remarks on the Tea Party, then we get to the callers. First up is a guy who thinks NPR “worships the god of the free market” and is therefore surprised to see someone like West on the show. That criticism pretty much speaks for itself as ridiculous. Yet, our guest host just politely says “Thank you very much for your call,” and moves on to another question with Cornel West. Imagine if the caller had said that NPR worships the god of socialism or Marx– would the guest host have let this slip by without comment, and with a polite thank you for the caller’s thoughts? I highly doubt it. We see the bias in the very next call, when a self-identified “24-year-old white male” (isn’t it sad when radio callers feel the need to identify themselves in such a way?) says that he thinks there is a dawning of racial reconciliation among young people. The guest host tells West that the caller could be right, but there is still a segment of white people who are scared of the future, apparently due solely to race. Of course, the guest host didn’t mention after the previous call that there are people who are scared for the future due to lack of a free market — he just let the caller’s thoughts stand on their own, yet wouldn’t let the “24-year-old white male”‘s thoughts stand on their own.