Here's what I said in the "Seriously, America,...." thread about the overall slant of the media, and i still stand by it:
The media is primarily funded by commercials in the US (along with other factors specific to the US context) that means that truly leftist messages--e.g., messages that propose something other than a consumer-based economic system; that challenge the distribution of wealth; that take on the fact that while profits of the economy have been privatized, costs have been largely socialized, made invisible, and often disproprotionately inflicted on impoverished communities (e.g., locating dumps near slums)--those kinds of messages have almost no chance of being aired, in the first place, and, when they are, they are almost impossible to truly "hear."
I.e., there's a distinctively right-ward slant to the US media that is at least in part due to the way it is entirely funded. That is, when every page of newsprint has to have a dozen ads on it, everyonline page has a corporate banner across the top, every news story is framed by commercial breaks....is it even possible for anything other than a free-market message, individualist message to be conveyed? Frankly, I don't think so.
It's set up to overwhelmingly and repeatedly send the message: "You, dear American consumer, and your needs/fears/dreams are the center of the universe. Buying products and services is the way to fulfill those needs, resolve your fears, and achieve your dreams. It's all about You, personally. Making choices between products IS freedom, power. Freedom is, in fact, nothing more than the ability to make choices between products. Being 'smart' means doing research on the things you're buying so you get the best deal. You are a consumer, first and foremost (not a citizen)."
We are defined, and come to define ourselves as consumers, even by our news sources. Everything else recedes--citizenship and the obligation to care about the political life of the country, collective action becomes a kind of joke. Who has time for politics when there's so much to buy, so many "empowering" decisions to make about which laundry detergent to choose, which Medicaid plan to enroll in? Politics becomes increasingly a spectator sport; choosing a political party akin to being a fan of professional football team. Watching the news is but one of many entertainment options, with no political implications.
And it's pretty hard NOT to wind up kind of thinking: the news of the world must be entertaining, and leave me* feeling good about myself, or I'm going to just watch the O.C. (*& some "me"s are more important than others: i.e., the ones with buying power.)
Even one, major non-commercial news source can make a difference, can create some resistance. We don't really have one in this country--NPR and PBC are increasingly funded by major commercial donors.
Phallicus, in the Duke thread, you said that a liberal bias in US media was indisputable, i.e., You can't deny a liberal bias in the news, though. I think that's because we swim in this capitalistic framework, one with a very very narrow band of what's allowed as a "common sense" political stance.
So, to answer Haus's questions: no, no paper in the US is calling for Bush's impeachment. (The only source I can think of that has is the Nation magazine, and that's just a weekly newsmag with a relatively small circulation but they get some excellent contributors--e.g., Gary Younge's been writing for them recently, Patricia Williams, Katha Pollitt). No major source keeping track of Iraqi casualties. No major newsource regularly presenting any genuine and thoughtful pacifist or anti-capitalism arguments.
Or think about it: every night on the evening news, in every single channel (TV and radio, NPR/PBS included) we are given a summary of the action on Wall Street. What if, instead, every single newsreport ended with a poverty report. How many people died that day in the world of various diseases, where did they occur, how many of those were likely preventable. How many were largely due to starvation, how many due to war... What diference would it make?
Would that ever happen? I don't think it could ever happen in our current set up--and not just for "reasonable" reasons ("statistics would just reduce those people to numbers" etc.). Flatly: on the whole, we don't value most human lives as much as we value profits, and the daily stock market reports to me speak that pretty clearly, when there's so much that we don't count every day. And that, finally, is the socially conservative, right wing value system that we're swimming in.
On the run-up to the war, I listened to NPR and the BBC virtually every night. In my memory (and this is, I realize, difficult to support at this point), it was astounding how when a protest was covered by NPR--which many conservatives would very quickly lable as having a liberal bias--we would hear people shouting, a reporter would read off what some of the signs said, and then they'd turn to an administration official or supporter who would make the pro-war argument. They might occasionally end back at the protest, might even end on a relatively neutral or even sympathetic note at times, but in virtually NO cases did they actually interview any protestors at anything comparable to the length they were giving the admistration's representatives. When they did interview them, they'd ask more and much more skeptical questions than they were putting to the administration officials. (My spouse noted that it was quite possible that the only way Bush's political representatives would agree to be interviewed was if they could control the number and nature of the questions being asked. But if that was the case, they should have said that, and normally they did not.)
This was in deep contrast to BBC reports which always asked hard questions of both sides, AND let both sides talk at some length. To me, this amounted to a pretty clear conservative bias to the NPR reporting.
In general, the US media is passive and non-confrontational in the face of power. I DO believe they know where their bread is buttered, and they don't bite the dogs that feed them, that wag through them--particularly if the "ratings" of the officeholder are high or if it wouldn't be very "feel good" for the average listener/reader/viewer who might then not show up the next night, because there are so many other "entertainment" options available, against which news already has a hard time competing.
This is driven by a focus on short-term profits, i.e., the logic of the market, and it is having a deadly effect on democracy in the US, and more literally it is costing lives around the world. It is ultimately hegemonic in its effect, conservative of the status quo, and by virtually no reasonable definition "left" in its bias, fraught as such terms are. |
