"Our aim, to swat liars and leeches, hypocrites & humbugs, demagogs & dastards"
-- The Yellow Jacket
Moravian Falls, N.C., 1919
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
More fairness
Montana Headlines has a thorough response, well worth reading, to my piece on the Fairness Doctrine (yes, the link is OK; you just just have to scroll down for a while).
5 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Good piece you wrote there. A couple of minor points:
One, it seems to go without saying that mainstream media is liberal. The only in depth analysis I've seen on the subject, Chomsky/Herman Manufacturing Consent, pretty well decimates the contention with hard data on hot issues when the book came out in 1988. (It's been updated as of 2002, but I haven't seen that release.) Anyway, any damned fool can say that CBS is liberal, but for once, please put up or shut up. Too often the liberal media premise is bought without a dose of incredulity.
Secondly, you seem to say that the right wing radio market is market-driven. Maybe so, but there's another factor involved too - sponsorship. There are a hundred companies who have made it clear to ABC, for example, that they want nothing of Air America. They elected to boycott any A/A programming. No matter the listening audience, if you can't get a sponsor, you won't get on.
I have a hard time believing that the liberal radio market is not rich for mining - it's certainly a larger niche than the ones that right wingers are carving up. Surely if there is a market for a margin player like G Gordon Liddy, there is one for Thom Hartman. The only difference - the G-Man can get sponsorship.
But Mark, even sponsorship is market driven. Advertisers want to promote spots with the biggest audience. If Al Franken had as much market share as Sean Hannity he too would attract sponsors.
I don't know where this "liberal" media is. I sure don't find it on most news shows. Even the local stations seem to have a conservative bias. It's in what they cover, not what they say. And the Gazoo is sure not liberal. It's a cheerleader and doesn't report much on local issues. Its city-state news is primarily state news. And a large part of what appears to be news is actually paid for obituaries. Those who think there is a liberal bias in the news are just afraid to look at what they are seeing and think it over.
Eric - sponsorship can be market-driven. It can also be ideological, which is my point. One hundred corporations didn't boycott Air America because it lacked an audience. Their bottom line would not have been affected at all. They did it because they didn't like the content.
5 comments:
Good piece you wrote there. A couple of minor points:
One, it seems to go without saying that mainstream media is liberal. The only in depth analysis I've seen on the subject, Chomsky/Herman Manufacturing Consent, pretty well decimates the contention with hard data on hot issues when the book came out in 1988. (It's been updated as of 2002, but I haven't seen that release.) Anyway, any damned fool can say that CBS is liberal, but for once, please put up or shut up. Too often the liberal media premise is bought without a dose of incredulity.
Secondly, you seem to say that the right wing radio market is market-driven. Maybe so, but there's another factor involved too - sponsorship. There are a hundred companies who have made it clear to ABC, for example, that they want nothing of Air America. They elected to boycott any A/A programming. No matter the listening audience, if you can't get a sponsor, you won't get on.
I have a hard time believing that the liberal radio market is not rich for mining - it's certainly a larger niche than the ones that right wingers are carving up. Surely if there is a market for a margin player like G Gordon Liddy, there is one for Thom Hartman. The only difference - the G-Man can get sponsorship.
But Mark, even sponsorship is market driven. Advertisers want to promote spots with the biggest audience. If Al Franken had as much market share as Sean Hannity he too would attract sponsors.
I don't know where this "liberal" media is. I sure don't find it on most news shows. Even the local stations seem to have a conservative bias. It's in what they cover, not what they say. And the Gazoo is sure not liberal. It's a cheerleader and doesn't report much on local issues. Its city-state news is primarily state news. And a large part of what appears to be news is actually paid for obituaries. Those who think there is a liberal bias in the news are just afraid to look at what they are seeing and think it over.
God bless the Invisible Hand!
Eric - sponsorship can be market-driven. It can also be ideological, which is my point. One hundred corporations didn't boycott Air America because it lacked an audience. Their bottom line would not have been affected at all. They did it because they didn't like the content.
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