How the hell do you shoot down the "liberal media" meme in a short LTTE?

[bbernardini]

In response to this dummy:

I find it truly mistifying that the placement of “Mallard Fillmore” in the comics section has raised so much angst among liberals. When “Doonesbury” was placed in the comics section of most major newpapers some 30 years ago, there were few protests. Perhaps now we have balance?

In a related matter, no one seemed to mind that there was a distinct liberal bias in the electronic media when the three broadcast networks, NBC, CBS, ABC and the cable networks, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC dominated the airwaves. Only when Fox News came along with a distinctly conservative bias did anyone complain.

I applaud the Daily Local for its balance on the editorial page and the comics section.

Clevio “Monk” Angelo

Parkesburg

[Kolesar]

1. Some American newspapers refused to run Doonesbury - Reagan's Brain in 1980

"here we walk through the frayed neurons of the cerebellum where are stored a nostalgic version of an America of family sedans and Burma Shave signs".

or something like that

[LTR]

2. These people have no clue

First, I'd ask Monk to prove that the "three broadcast networks, NBC, CBS, ABC and the cable networks, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC" are "liberally-biased." Then I'd point out the right-wing conglomerates and shareholders who own them. And no, just because some voice on AM radio told him that the media is liberal does not make it so.

Wingnuts only claim that there's liberal bias in the media because they're thin-skinned wussies who like to cry, whine and complain about anything they don't like. Just a lot of misinformed hot air.

[Perry Logan]

3. A liberal media would have covered the opposition to the Iraq invasion.

[Perry Logan]

4. If the media were liberal, I--a liberal--would be much happier with it.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Liberal Bias My Ass

If I recall correctly, when the George Bush Republicans led us into a ruinous war with Iraq, not a single editorial page of a major US newspaper spoke out against it. They parroted without question the torrent of lies spewing from the White House.

When was the last time a newspaper editorial pushed for universal healthcare in the US? When was the last time a newspaper editorial discussed the precipitous fall in the buying power of an average paycheck over the past 30 years?

Bullshit.

[tom_paine]

7. That's good stuff, Manny. It has an advantage over what I suggested below: brevity.

Which is key to getting a Letter to the Editor printed.

Of course, the dynamic I spoke of in my "postscript" in that post below will likely preclude such a letter from being printed, and if it is printed it will be massively edited to defang it (compared tothe Bushies', who's juvenile stream of insult are always kept in, seemingly udited).

Still, people should keep trying. I am not advocating giving up.

[jmowreader]

10. Maybe in the Village Voice...

but no local paper did.

[tom_paine]

6. Try something like this:

The old neoconservative canard of "liberal media" proves that the old adage, "repeat a big lie enough times and people will believe it," is alive and well, even though it becomes more laughably false by the day.

Some examples of the supposedly "liberal" media's liberality:

Failing to debunk reepated lies coming from the Republicans Party in the last 20 years, including but not limited to the Clinton's trashed the White House on their way out, which is a falsehood (Source: 2001 GAO Report) that Al Gore said he invented the Internet (Source: 2000 CNN Transcript of the original conversation) that John Kerry did not earn his Silver Star nor Purple Heart in Vietnam (Sources: not just the men Kerry served with directly, but several examples exist of the Swift Boaters themselves having praised Kerry's service before later fabricating faslehoods about his service in 2004) all the while giving almost 100% blanket silence on GW Bush's 18 months AWOL, techincally desertion in time of war, in 2000 and 2004.

And if that isn't enough:

A total 70 year news blackout on the 100% factual account of Grandfather Prescott Bush's involvement with the 1934 attempt to overthrow the US government and FDR, replacing it with a fascist dictatorship in which Mr. Bush was slated to be Ambassador to Nazi Germany for the new fascist state due to his longstanding and warm ties laundering the money of Nazi victims through his Union banking Corporation and the Hamburg-America Shipping Lines.

(Source: United States National Archives: 1935 House Committee on UnAmerican Activities)

There are many more examples of the fact that the "liberal media" is not liberal at all, but more corporate and beholden to neoconservative interests by far than it is liberal. To be able to look at CNN or for God's sake CNBC and say those media are "liberal" demonstrates the delusion that can be created with a 30 year successful propaganda program based on shameless lying and repetition.

===========================================================================

Of course, as anyone who has tried to write a Letter to the Editor these past 8 years knows, the Bushies can say the vilest things about "liberals" and it will be printed legnthily and verbatim.

Such a letter as the one I proposed (you would probbaly have to shave it down for length) would be dismissed out of hand as if you had written a stream of juvenile insults, which is essentially what many neocon letters are that get printed almost unedited every week in newpapers all around the nation.

Which isn't to say that you shouldn't try. You should try. Maybe yours will be the exception that proves the rule.

[zbdent]

8. Liberal "bias" in the media ...

Kennedy relative wrecks a car late night in DC ... butt of jokes by the 5am newscasts on the radio THAT MORNING ...

Gore's son caught speeding in California (in a hybrid!) ... butt of jokes the next morning ...

Psychotically anti-gay Republican senator is arrested for solicitation of homosexual sex in a public bathroom and pleads guilty ... crickets chirp ... months later, the senator changes the plea to not guilty ... finally, a few months after the fact, some news outlets take note ...

Yeah, "liberal media bias", my ass ...

[bbernardini]

9. Kick!

[Midlodemocrat]

11. The media is only as liberal as the organizations that own them.

[LanternWaste]

12. Simply illustrate media ownership

followed with a question as to why huge, multi-national corporations or America's number two defense contractor would be part and parcel to a "liberal media" conspiracy...

[bbernardini]

13. Kick!