Liberal bias

"Liberal bias," or "liberal media," in American political discourse, are common phrases used, mostly by those on the political right, to explain their view that the American media generally has a liberal bias. This phrase is often used to summarize allegations that a left-wing agenda is promoted because of a "slant" or "spin" in news. In particular, the targets of this phrase are often the network news stations of CBS, ABC, and NBC, as well as major newspapers and newswires, especially the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post, as well as the Associated Press and others.

People who use the phrase "liberal bias" believe that liberal biases are evident in both the choice (what stories are favored, or "played," over others) and coverage (how stories are research, portrayed, and presented). Others seriously dispute this, with some claiming that there is a conservative bias.

Claims of "liberal biases" prevail mainly in the United States; however, some prominent figures on the right-wing in Britain have also claimed that the British media is left-wing, especially the publicly funded BBC. Conservative critics in Canada have similiary attacked the state-funded CBC, as have Australian conservatives and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

History

One of the earliest claims that liberal bias dominates the media dates back to November 1969, when Spiro Agnew, then Vice President under Richard Nixon made a landmark speech denouncing media influence on politics.¹ From the 1990s onwards, some American conservatives have increasingly voiced their perception that liberals dominate the American mass media and presents a liberal point of view. The Media Research Center is a organization devoted to exposing purported liberal bias in the media.

Several conservative authors have written books on liberal bias in the media:

• Bernard Goldberg wrote Bias in 2001, in which he claimed CBS, his former employer, had a liberal bias.
• Bob Kohn wrote Journalistic Fraud, a criticism of the New York Times.
• Ann Coulter wrote Slander in 2002, in which she claimed the American television and print news had a widespread liberal bias.

Allegations

The main criticisms of alleged liberal bias in the media tend to be two-fold. Firstly the objectivity of anchors and newswriters is called into question, and secondly, the priorities and focus of the media network stations and corporations in general is disputed.

Conservative critics often accuse prominent anchors such as Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Peter Jennings as being rather "open" liberals instead of political neutrals, and point to various speeches and comments they've made that supposedly illustrate their views. Other anchors may be criticised for their past, non-media careers, in which they may have been supporters, campaigners, or fundraisers of left-wing political candidates. Surveys have been done which indicate that by a rather large margin journalists in the United States tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic in federal elections. Conservatives argue that when news anchors and producers have private, politically-active backgrounds, it inevitably skewers their outlook when delivering the news or holding interviews.

Such allegations of pre-exisiting political biases lead into the other main criticism, which is that mainstream news covers events in a way that supports the liberal perspective while minimizing the conservative counter-arguements. Conservatives point to issues such as abortion, the PATRIOT Act, or as examples of issues in which conservative counter-arguments to liberal opposition are rarely given much time on the news.

Another main allegion is that the media routinely portrays Republicans in an unflattering light, pointing to media coverage of Ronald Reagan, Dan Quayle, and George W. Bush as examples. Republicans, they argue, are routinely portrayed as stupid, incompetient, fanatical, or worse due to the media's focus on an alleged number of tactics, such as selective quoting, "gotcha" tactics, or excessively emoitionally-driven coverage.

Opposing views

Liberals often heatedly deny that they, or the institutions they supposedly dominate, harbor or exhibit any such bias -- maintaining instead that it is conservatives who are biased.

Critics of the concept of liberal bias argue that it is largely invention of the conservative right. Many of these critics also say that most media outlets are owned by wealthy individuals, many if not most of whom are on the right. Moreover, they say, both the print and broadcast media survive from advertising revenues, which makes the media rely to an extent on corporations; they thus claim that these media are less likely to present information that could harm potential advertisers. Critics also point to the worldwide perception that US media is more right-wing than in most other democracies, and less likely to challenge an official position than most other countries' media.

Certain neoconservatives, such as Irving Kristol, have said that the charge of "liberal bias" has been exaggerated for rhetorical purposes.

Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News in one of those who argues against any significant liberal bias. Reviewer John Moe sums up Alterman's views:

"The conservatives in the newspapers, television, talk radio, and the Republican party are lying about liberal bias and repeating the same lies long enough that they've taken on a patina of truth. Further, the perception of such a bias has cowed many media outlets into presenting more conservative opinions to counterbalance a bias, which does not, in fact, exist."

The article 'spiking' contains an account by film critic Roger Ebert in which a reporter from the Tom Brokaw news show approaches a story with preconceived conservative bias.

It can often be seen that foreign news agencies break US anti-conservative news stories before the domestic press. For example when the BBC ran allegations that the state of Florida had been over-aggressive about removing alleged criminals from the voter register, no US news agency ran the story.

Notes

¹ The speech is available .