Effective Tactic

One of the right wings' most effective tactics is repetition, thank you Mr Goebbels. In the media realm one of the constant refrains is the liberal bias of the media. I certainly think that most of the major networks are liberal but this does not mean that they are anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, pro-labor, hostile to conservatives or not patriotic as the right contends. I think they are best described by Bill Moyers who says:

"One reason I’m in hot water is because my colleagues and I at “NOW” didn’t play by the conventional rules of Beltway journalism. Those rules divide the world into democrats and republicans, liberals and conservatives and allow journalists to pretend they have done their job if, instead of reporting the truth behind the news, they merely give each side an opportunity to spin the news."

Here's the full transcript of his speech.

I actually don't think that Moyers goes far enough. I think that ALL social systems create processes of hegemony, meaning that you move up in the system if you play by the rules, you don't if you don't. Say you are at the Milwaukee Jenital and you constantly report on the dire state of the job market and how the local ruling class has either moved shop or given up totally on the idea of a community and refused to pander to the racist views of the south and west suburbs that blame all Milwaukee's ills on poor black people. You will very soon became an ex-journalist. Or you will end up on the gardening beat.

Or take sports for example. Let's say your line was constantly that the Milwaukee Brewer management were a bunch of tight fisted sclawags that only used the club for their own entertainment and profit and the team is a perennial loser because Bud Selig is a toadie for the rich owners and could care less about putting on a winning team because he backs the institutional framework that keeps small market teams losers. This is a fact but as a sports "journalist" your job is to be a booster and gettting people to the ball park is part of your job because in many towns the local cable or newspaper owns the team!

Political and business journalism works in a similar fashion. The Business Journal or the New York Times have a constituency that like to hear a certain mantra, capitalism good, labor greedy, France bad, we can have nukes but if anyone else wants them this is a threat to world civilization, I could go on. Most of us actually don't want our basic world view to be too radically challenged, if it is we ridicule or dismiss (I plead partial guilt). We are indoctrinated in our youth and most of us rarely challenge the basic ideologiacl outlook that we are indoctrinated in unless there is a major shock to our livelyhoods.

The media are also active agents in creating that ideological outlook. For the first 100 years of the United States the tariff was seen as a pillar of Americanism and a perfectly reasonable tool of internal development. As soon as the United States became the creator of a majority of the worlds manufatured goods the position of most in ruling circles decided that the tariff was a tool of godless communism and beelzebob. Once China starts making airplanes many in the ruling elite will start demanding a return to the tariff.


Journalists will never stray to far from the farm because in the end they know who pays thier bills. The right wing has it right when they say that media have a point of view but they have it wrong when they say that it's because they all have a crusader mentality, it's more the case that the political culture is basically liberal but the society is now in transition and they want the media to more closely mirror their POV.