Eric Alterman: CBS News and the Washington Post go into overtime expunging liberal bias

[marmar]

from The Nation:



Refs, Worked (Redux) The Liberal Media
By Eric Alterman

November 25, 2008


There is some strategy to ("liberal media"-bashing).... If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is "work the refs." Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one. --Former Republican Party chair Rich Bond, 1992



George Santayana, call your office. MSM refs are not merely "doomed to repeat" their historic capitulation to right-wing pressure groups; they are leading the charge themselves.

Exhibit A is CBS News. Scared silly in 2004 by blogger attacks on Dan Rather's carelessly sourced report on George Bush's war avoidance record--according to records unearthed in the discovery process of Rather's lawsuit--network execs sought, by any means necessary, to appease their accusers. This included rejecting a moderate Republican like Warren Rudman for their allegedly independent investigation because, as CBS News vice president Linda Mason put it, he might not "mollify the right." Instead, they settled on Richard Thornburgh, who was found to receive "high marks from the GOP." In a way, that's too bad, because CBS was actually considering--I swear I'm not making this up--going to Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge and Ann Coulter. How is such insanity possible? According to CBS News ex-president Andrew Heyward, "CBS News, fairly or unfairly, had a reputation for liberal bias," and "the harshest scrutiny was obviously going to come from the right."

A more recent but only marginally less disturbing case of a similar Stockholm-style syndrome among appointed MSM watchdogs can be found in a couple of recent columns by Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell. Readers of this column are aware of countless indulgences John McCain enjoyed from that paper, as well as some vicious and unfair characterizations of Barack Obama. Never mind. The Post's problem, says Howell, is the fact that "thousands of conservatives and even some moderates have complained during my more than three-year term that The Post is too liberal; many have stopped subscribing, including more than 900 in the past four weeks." She calls these complaints "valid" and explains that part of the problem is that "journalism naturally draws liberals." Nowhere, however, does she speak to competing claims on these same journalists, such as the corporate interests of its owners and executives or the fact that journalists often overcompensate for their alleged biases--which, by the way, are far more conservative than liberal on economics and more hawkish than dovish on war and peace.

When Howell gets into specifics, however, she demonstrates just how transparent is her mission to mollify the same conservative complaints that so successfully intimidated CBS. She is concerned, she writes, about "the drumbeat of polling stories saying Obama and the Democrats were likely to win." Perhaps the Post should have made up some phony polls in an imaginary country in which McCain was defeating Obama and reported on those instead. Conservatives, she adds, also "felt the paper hadn't sufficiently scrutinized Obama." And Howell agrees. "Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin 'Tony' Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago," she writes, and adds, "The Post did nothing on Obama's acknowledged drug use as a teenager." .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081215/alterman?rel=hp_currently

[SpiralHawk]

1. CBS, the Post and most other corporate media...

...long ago jumped the Truthiness Shark to land themselves squarely in the jaws not of journalism, but of republicon homelander propaganda. And anyone who is paying attention, and being honest, knows it. The corporate media no longer serve America or Americans; they serve the blow-dry, wide-stance, hypocrisy-clad corporate republicon borg.

It is THAT freaking obvious.

That is why they have lost all honor, all cred.

That is why they are now irrelevant, and losing readers, viewers, and advertising.

Americans are sick and tired of their right-wing republicon homelander spin and obfuscation.

[harun]

2. Great post. My wife who is not political was telling me about how many of

her friends (who aren't really political either) told her they won't turn on Fox news because it is all BS.

These have jumped the shark so bad that even people who aren't really paying attention can't stomach their crap.

[Wednesdays]

3. "Work the refs" my ass

The Repukes OWN the refs.

The Post's problem, says Howell, is the fact that "thousands of conservatives and even some moderates have complained during my more than three-year term that The Post is too liberal; many have stopped subscribing, including more than 900 in the past four weeks." She calls these complaints "valid" and explains that part of the problem is that "journalism naturally draws liberals." Nowhere, however, does she speak to competing claims on these same journalists, such as the corporate interests of its owners and executives or the fact that journalists often overcompensate for their alleged biases--which, by the way, are far more conservative than liberal on economics and more hawkish than dovish on war and peace.

The difference (as always) is, those who hold the most cash get their way.

[lunatica]

4. They lost the left years ago so now they're trying to hold onto the right customers

We, the left, came to the internet for our news. Anything and everything else they say is pure crap pelted at them by their remaining customers. They are a dying species and they're trying desperately to be relevant again. It was bound to happen. We don't need to be told what to read or think or know anymore and they really don't quite get it yet.

[OHdem10]

5. The Elites are Investors. Elites include the Media esp. DC Media

Investors control the country. They like the status quo Conservative
Economics. They are willing to play on the Cultural Issues in order
to keep the status quo-- No Regulation--No Taxes--No government( if possible)


It is in the Elite Media's best interest to repeat the lie. This
is a Center Right country ---this is a center right country.

Another consideration: The RW rank and file watch TV. Too many Democrats
pride themselves on not watching TV. Corporate TV Controls.
The Broadcast and Cable have to depend on the "numbers".
Believe it or not, Brokaw explained ---it is a serious problem if
everyone in the South turns off their TV in protest of the station.

With the stroke of a key the Networks can have their computers crash
from protest E-Mails from all over the US. Do not let anyone tell
you the RW is not organized. Note how Fox leads ratings--have the eyeballs. The problem: Democrats outnumber GOP but they do not
watch TV regularly.

Business runs the country--this has been the fight from days of
Andrew Jackson. Business won and the Corporate Media cannot
cross them.

In reality the country has never been Center Right, it serves Business
Interest to say that.

[Peace Patriot]

6. "Dan Rather's carelessly sourced report on George Bush's war avoidance record"

I don't believe that it was "carelessly" sourced. I believe it was sabotaged. Dan Rather actually had excellent evidence that Bush went AWOL from his "champagne" service in the Texas National Guard. One piece of the evidence had been mysteriously re-typed, but it was corroborated by other evidence, including the testimony of the secretary who originally handled the documents. Further, Freeperville instantly knew about the re-typing and went into a feeding frenzy about IBM Selectrics, etc. There was no reason whatever not to run this story on CBS. As documented in Rather's lawsuit against CBS, the CBS execs said that Bush-Cheney's reelection was "in our interest." That is why they killed the story, and tried their best to ruin Rather's career--who knew the story was true and battled for it. Rather has recovered, by the way, and is alive and well at www.HD.net, where he produced one of the best documentaries on U.S. election fraud: "The Trouble With Touchscreens." The one benefit from this sorry incident of Rovian black ops is that it radicalized Dan Rather.