Biased=By Us
Why the debate on “Liberal Media” is a red herring.
by Shelton Hull
Among the media’s favorite subjects: itself. Much time and space has been given over to dense analysis of the industry’s ideological leanings over the years. Almost every relevant politician of our time, and most of those who cover them, has had something to say about whether the press slants their coverage in support of a particular agenda. Books like Bernard Goldberg’s Bias, Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky & Herman, and What Liberal Media? by Eric Alterman stand as the contemporary flash-points of debate over the concepts referenced in their titles. Like a good sheep, I shall now submit my opinion, since at least one person should lay it out straight.
It’s important to draw some distinctions between the technology of media and the people who make use of it. Too often the debate on media bias gets blurred, imprecise, sloppy, because we seek to deal with a rather complicated subject within the scant time allotted by television. Marshall McLuhan’s genius was in establishing that “media” is hardly the expansive catch-all it’s been reduced to in our time. Instead, thanks in large part to his work, the word denotes an entire discipline of study. The majority of the population hasn’t dabbled with “media studies” beyond the sliver that’s made its way into so-called “mass” media, and they are poorly-served by what little they’ve received. As a result, media bias helps determine how we think about media bias.
Another problem is how we define the polarities of media bias. There are a variety of interests to be served by media, which conflict and overlap and vie for strategic position against the other interests. None can just be presumed to know exactly what its own interests are, in the short-, medium- or long-term, but we can hope. Besides the external political interests that are surely there, we have also the audience, workers, management, ownership, advertisers and, of course, the technology itself. Each of these interests (and any I may have missed) have their own specific ideological components, which can be labeled “liberal,” “conservative” or whatever. The question of which interests trump the others is a mostly internal, individual one; the subject defies broad strokes.
For example, leftists believe the predominant media bias is “corporate”; that is, slanted toward the economic interests (which we presume to define the ideology) of its ownership. Conservatives believe the predominant media bias is “liberal”; that is, slanted toward the ideological interests of personnel, who tend to be liberals. Still others (There are others? Who?) believe that the media simply reports what the government tells it to, regardless of the ideology of a given administration. Of course, none of these words really mean anything anymore, and that creates a whole other category of complications.
It makes sense that “most” working journalists are “liberals,” because they represent the lowest rung in the American elite. They made their way up through the ranks, all the while noting the relative flaws of those above them in hopes of taking their place. Beyond the normal, selfish lust for power, many of them truly believe that the organization would be improved by their increased visibility, because they represent an evolution of sorts. This is what makes liberals liberal: a basic dissatisfaction with pre-existing structures as they are. In contrast, conservative journalists tend to coalesce and develop their own media institutions, rather than trying to reform the old ones from within.
This debate basically boils down to questions of “human nature,” a term that becomes increasingly oxymoronic by the day. The basic weirdness of people means the debate will likely continue forever, or at least until the information laws render all the salient points moot. But it’s worth considering that media technology has an inherently liberalizing effect on societies, because it increases the sum total of information available to a population, thus encouraging the dissemination of new ideas, some of which are awful while others are of vital importance. From the technological perspective, the predominant interest of media is the proliferation of media. Beyond that, ideology doesn’t much matter.
Indeed, proliferation is the ultimate solution to media bias, because the most obvious bias is oriented in favor of whatever organizations comprise the “establishment” of a given period. The internet has proven useful in countering biases across the ideological spectrum, just as TV, radio and the various forms of print media have helped to undermine the interests that dominated prior to their introduction. The best example, I think, is the role of Gutenberg’s printing press in fomenting the spread of Christianity and inducing higher levels of mass literacy, which primed the population for many other big ideas. The next big ideas, for better or worse, will spread through media, biased though it is.
