More on the Media

It occurs that my previous post about media bias might just appear to be sour grapes. "What if the Zogby poll had proved an apparent conservative bias to the media?", someone might legitimately challenge me.

Well I guess I would have been less inclined to try and point out the flaws, but I would still have to concede the main point that no body can properly judge whether the media as a whole is biased one way or another.

Maybe this is a better way to think of it:

There are clearly news sources that are more favorable to the left (New York Times) and to the right (Fox News). If we were to say that the effect was overall more to one side or the other, a good way would be to look at the ratings and sales of those identified in either direction.

Well, on the left we have the NYT which is obviously widely read, we have Air America Radio, which is just clawing its way out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, we have comedians like John Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher, and if you believe conservatives, we have CBS News. I'll also add Keith Olberman on MSNBC.

On the right, they have an entire news channel (Fox), they have Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly on TV nightly, they have the Wall Street Journal. On talk radio they have Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck (again), Bill O'Reilly (agiain), Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Laura Schlessinger, Michael Savage, Mike Gallager, and Michael Medved; Focus-on-the Family is one of the most listened-to syndicated shows in America.

While many people have heard of Air America, fewer have probably heard of Salem Communications despite the fact that in the top 25 markets (i.e. those with the most money) it is the third largest broadcaster. (No.1, incidently, is Clear Channel - hardly known for its liberal bias!) Salem is quite open about its conservative orientation and syndicates much of the above programming; it also owns the popular Townhall.com website.

All the above are openly conservative and have huge ratings figures.

So I can't say whether the 'media as a whole' is biased one way or another, but even a cursary treatment like the above doesn't exactly leave one feeling that it's liberal all the way!

Media Bias

A recent poll by Zogby, showed that a majority of Americans think the media has political bias. Moreover, a majority of those who thought there was a bias, felt it was towards the liberal side.

The thing about this poll is that it is only proof of peoples' opinions about media bias, rather than proof of actual media bias, and if you think about those opinions they are essentially meaningless. In the U.S. there are three main terrestrial TV news sources - ABC, NBC & CBS. There are at least five other national cable news sources - CNN, Fox, MSNBC, BBC America & PBS - not to mention hundreds of local TV stations, local and national radio sources, and the print media. The point is that a person can have an informed opinion about whether one or two news sources appear biased, but there is no way he or she can speak for 'the media' as a whole.

So if nobody can reliably have enough data to make that kind of judgement accurately, we should ask where the opinion comes from, and at this point, much becomes clear. People's opinions about the media are rooted in the same place as their opinions about world events, the government, and so on: they come from the media.

How many times do you see some rabble-rousing populist like Bill O'Reilly, or Michael Savage play the down-trodden martyr? They're fighting the forces of liberal censorship, speaking out where the 'liberal media' would keep them quiet. They manufacture this idea of a politically-correct thought police that tells them they can't hold opinions, or can't say them out loud, etc, etc. You see it almost daily, and it's one of their tactics. Put bluntly, the conservative media perpetuates a myth of liberal-media bias because it allows them to present themselves as a force for good, fighting unfair media control. After all, what good is God unless there is a devil?

Troop Withdrawal

The Republicans have frequently suggested that we should never have any kind of timetable for troop withdrawal because, as John Boehner suggested recently, terrorists will simply sit back and wait until we have left and then attack.

This piece of reasoning has never sat well with me.

Firstly, it is unclear exactly where this post-withdrawal attack will be directed. Is Boehner talking about an attack on the forces or an attack on the USA? The plain fact is, that in either case violence against Americans is less likely with the troops removed from Iraq.

Iraq is clearly experiencing some form of civil war, and the regular violence is sometimes sectarian and sometimes directed specifically at U.S. troops. If we were to withdraw the troops that would remove one of the targets of violence and, of course, end the troop deaths. This is not to say that the sectarian violence wouldn't increase, it is likely that it would, but it would undoubtedly be perpetrated by both sides.

As for an attack on the United States, only a woefully uninformed stupid person would think that we are making that less likely by remaining in Iraq indefinitely.

There are no good options in Iraq (it's the reason we said the war should never have been started!) but a gradual withdrawal may be the best of a bad lot. Pulling out immediately and staying indefinitely are both bad choices. If we wait for the 'perfect time' to leave it will never come, and, sadly, neither will the perfect time to begin a gradual withdrawal.

Removing the troops will likely lead to an increase in violence and the main victims of which will be the Iraqis. For this we should beg their forgiveness. It is, after all, the Iraqi's who have suffered the most during this whole sorry four years and will continue to, long after we have given up.

Coulter (again)

I realize this is the 2nd post about Coulter in a row which is more credence than I would like to give her, but this whole 'faggot' debacle has got me thinking.

Andrew Sullivan wrote an intelligent, thoughtful piece about it here

One aspect I noticed in some conservative blogs was a spectacularly spurious conclusion that since liberals are 'pro-gay' it is hypocritical of us to complain when someone is called a faggot.

Let's be clear about this, if Person A tells Person B that she thinks B is gay, and B reacts with some kind of disgusted denial, then if B had previously stood up for gay rights B might warrant some accusation of hypocrisy.

However, Coulter did not simply suggest that Edwards was gay, she called him a faggot, which is a word used only offensively. For a parallel we can look at racial epithets. To acknowledge that a person is black is not offensive; to call him a nigger is extremely offensive. Both 'faggot' and 'nigger' are used to denigrate a person based on an inherent characteristic and display the intolerance and narrow-mindedness of its users.

Clearly, there is no hypocrisy in the liberal reaction. We support gay rights and we support the rights of racial minorities, and it is in that capacity that we abhor the use of abusive epithets to describe these groups.

Contemptible Witch

Once again, Ann Coulter has trotted out that old chestnut that environmentalists are all wealthy liberals who live in big houses and never consider or care how their expensive environmental policies will impact the poor, down-trodden, middle-class American.

Firstly, there are a many conservative environmentalists out there. True, they often want to preserve wild areas so that they can go and shoot things in them, but they definitely want to protect the environment - which is a good start.

Secondly, it is the wealthy people like Coulter who never seem to realize that energy costs money and that using less of it means less expenditure for the average person. She can afford to obstinately drive a Hummer or some such ridiculously large vehicle in order to prove to liberals that they can't tell her what to do. For those of us without bestsellers to pay the bills, having a Prius (which she derides so contemptuously), or more energy-efficient home appliances, means a large reduction in costs and more money in our pockets.

The technology these products rely on, is only available because the wealthier, environmentally-conscious, liberals (whom she despises) are willing to purchase them when they are first produced, thus creating demand and driving down costs. Without these people, Toyota would never have produced a Prius.

Far from these people being selfish, then, they voluntarily pay higher prices for environmentally-friendly products and in doing so, contribute to the greater good. Coulter, conversely, does all she can to make living more expensive by deriding environmental concerns that ultimately lead to more efficient (and therefore, affordable) products for the average American.

She, of course, never feels the effect of her actions due to her ample wealth.

Balance

One of the more entertaining aspects of listening to the hardline conservatives is how they label any one to the left of them as a socialist. This inlcudes the entire Democratic Party, most independents, and basically anyone else who disagrees with them.

Speaking as one of these people I will point out that I (and I think I'm not alone in this) am not beholden to any 'ism'. I am not interested in maintaining ideological purity in the face of contradictory eveidence, nor will I push some theoretical ideal simply because I have become convinced that it satisfies an abstract principle. I am interested in results.

If one looks at the kind of hardline communism of Cold War Eastern Europe, what one finds is that a small number of people lived with great wealth and luxury, while the vast majority lived in abject poverty.

Somewhat ironically, if the pendulum swings from far left to far right things don't change that much. If the libertarian extremists had their way, much of the institutional infrastructure that keeps the economy ticking along fairly smoothly would have to go. Things would, as these people prefer, be left to a kind of Hobbesian 'State of Nature' where we all fight for the finite resources and the few strongest would prevail. As with communism, we would then have a small number of people living with great wealth and luxury, while the vast majority live in abject poverty. If anyone needs an example to prove that this would be the outcome, look at 19th century Britain or America, or late 20th & early 21st century Africa.

If extreme leftist policies and extreme rightist policies both lead to a low quality of life for most people, they each have little to recommend them, even if they are ideologically consistent. The system that ensures the best quality of life for the most people is surely the one that a government elected to represent all those people should adopt. If that system is a market-driven economy with legal safeguards and a social safety net, so be it. If the 'state of nature' conservatism achieved those results it would be great. But as much as its advocates want to believe that it would, in practice it does not. Sadly they (like their communist counterparts) are so beholden to the principle that they are blind to the reality, and it is for this reason that they should avoid trying to run a country.