Twitter? What's Twitter?But seriously, I'm detecting a concerted effort to keep this out of the public eye.
I've felt for a long time that the media has a right-wing bias. People usually gauff or look at me bizzarely when I say that, because Spiro Agnew and Pat Buchanan launched a strategy many decades ago to paint the media as left wing in order to "work the ref" which has been perpetuated both intentionally and unintentionally by many others in the conservative movement through the years to the point where even some moderates and left-wingers have the phrase "left-wing media" drilled so deep into their heads that to hear the opposite sounds like the person saying it is from Mars. It's really been a brilliant strategy on the part of Agnew and Buchanan, because it has both the effect of forcing the media to second guess themselves and bend over backwards to be "fair" to conservatives, which in fact creates a bit of the conservative bias I am speaking of in and of itself (Though it is far from the main reason I believe the media has a right-wing bias), but also encourages people to turn to even more and more right-wing sources to get what they perceive as a evenhanded news. Remember when FOX News, owned by a well-known conservative and run up until a few months ago by a former Nixon political operative, used "fair and balanced" as its slogan? They were playing off this illusion that they'd successfully created in some people's minds that the mainstream media was left-wing, and thus a clearly right-wing partisian outlet like FOX News would seem "fair and balanced" to some viewers who would call network evening news left-wing and use that as a starting point to figure out where everything else would be on a scale. So if they were trained to think a little to the right was very liberal, a far-right outlet could seem umbiased (Every conservative I know admits now that FOX at least "leans to the right", but they didn't always admit it in the network's first decade or so).
Okay, so why do I think the mainstream media, even aside from clearly partisan outlets like FOX, tend to tilt to the right? All the large mainstream are owned by large corporations. Corporations want minimal regulations and legal liabiliy for themselves, and low taxes for corporations and the rich people who own them. Some corporations that own media have at times directly owned companies that mass produced war planes and tanks.
Also, just think. What mainstream media outlet adovocates for the return of old 20th century style welfare? Why is it when they discuss even popular programs like Social Security and Medicare, that the conversation is always framed as "How much should we cut?" rather than "How much should we increase?" Or "Should we cut, increae, or keep benefits the same?"?
No major network was against the Iraq War when it was happening. Many had embedded reporters who considered themselves part of battalions. Voices against the war weren't heard. The cable news channels embedded small American flags in the corners of their screens and showed tanks rolling out in montages with patriotic music in the background.
Global climate change is still treated as a subject with two sides to it even though the science is crystal clear.
This is a conservative media in this country. There are exceptions but those outlets are exceptions.
Think about why they covered a few right-wingers "taking over" a closed federal park building in the middle of nowhere a while back, but hush up larger protests that involve a minority group, global climate change, and opposing corporate power.
This sadly doesn't surprise me.
Although, I am interested in hearing alternate theories about why this isn't being covered.
I don't really want to debate whether the media is right or left wing, but maybe this isn't an example of a right bias and is happening for some other reason. What reason would it be?
* Caveat: When I say that I think the media is in general right wing, I mean on economics and foreign policy. Its possible social issues are a different story. I am not sure large corporations are anti-abortion or anti-gay or anything.
I only really see the bias in reporting about things that relate to the perceived interests of large corporations.
