What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News [Paperback]

 

 

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This is a very insightful, heavily footnoted, and meticulously researched piece of work. Eric Alterman completely shatters the myth of the "liberal media," which has become accepted as conventional wisdom pretty much accross the board, due to the tactics of conservative commentators and ideologues over the past three decades. Alterman effectively communicates that by constantly screaming that the media has a leftist agenda, conservatives in this country have been able to shift the public discourse to the far right. Afraid of giving validity to the right's accusations of a liberally slanted media, the mainstream media apply very different standards to liberal and conservative figures (hence their portrayal that Bush won the 2000 debates because he didn't drool on himself and didn't appear to be a complete and total idiot, while Gore "lost" because his mastery and grasp of the facts made him seem too condescending.) More recent examples include the media's assault on the liberal Howard Dean, effectively stomping his popular campaign into the gutter, and the total whitewash of Ronald Reagan's horrific and terrifying legacy. (A truly liberal media would have championed the Dean campaign as he was the most electable progressive candidate in the primaries, and and a truly liberal media also would have pointed out Reagan's policies of ignoring AIDS and of supporting deathsquad dictatorships, such as in Iraq, El Salvador and Guatemala). The most obvious examples of media subserviance to the conservative agenda have been the way the media has acted as official lapdog to the Bush administration, and their selling of the invasion of Iraq to the American public (which just two weeks ago, the New York times printed a statement buried in the middle of their paper where their editor acknowledged that their pre-war reporting was not entirely accurate or honest, as their stories played directly into the hands of Bush administration fabrications--which came a little too late as we are already embroiled in an unwinnable quagmire.) Claiming that the media has a liberal bias has been a wonderful way of limiting the press's watchdog function, silencing them into submission, and keeping them from accurately and honestly reporting on typically conservative institutions such as the military, organized religion, corporate America, and on conservative groups and leaders themselves. If you only have time to read one book this year, i highly recommend this one. If you consider this book to be a real eye opener, you should also check out Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky.

Real Americans don't stand a chance of understanding their country until they stop thinking in terms of "liberal" verses "conservative." Evangelical Christians see the media and other institutions pushing homosexuality and abortion - they're right! Others see the media pushing corporate greed - they're right! America is run by a group of people who want everyone to be oversexed, drug-addicted (Ritalin and Prozac preferred), childless, single, poor, stupid, and irresponsible. Can anyone with half a brain deny this? Does anyone really think that an upperclass of whom Paris Hilton and George W. Bush (the drunk, chronically unemployed trustfund baby, not the media creation) are typical members and who have purposefully set the country on a course where the best non-management job'll pay a measly $35,000 a year by 2010 wants ANYTHING else? People are going to be arguing about abortion and gay rights until we're all crowded in trailer homes - and guess what, we'll just get whatever a few fat cats want on those issues anyway. Americans better get their heads out of the conservative/liberal butts and think for themselves.

I will try to be kind here. The basic argument I got from reading this was that because conservatives own the companies that produce the news, that automatically means that you're going to get conservative spin from those media sources. Call me foolish (and I'm sure a lot of elitist liberals will) but that doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Do you watch CNN? Do you watch NBC, CBS, ABC nightly news? Tell me one thing that has been said good about President Bush (yeah, that's right. PRESIDENT Bush) over the past three years. They blast him everyday, non-stop. You know the difference between Rush, Hannity, and Mike Reagan compared to these news networks? Hannity, Rush, and Mike Reagan will tell you that they lean conservative. You'll never hear from the elite media that they lean left. I will give Eric Alterman credit for being well spoken, and that's why I'll give him 2 stars. This book did make me angry and I kind of chuckled here and there, because I don't agree with it, but it was a good effort.

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4.0 out of 5 stars more people should read this
What Liberal Media is a little dry at times but you can learn a lot from it. One of the best chapters was the chapter on the 2000 election. Read more

Published on April 30 2004

1.0 out of 5 stars "What socialist media?" by RexCurry.net
This book needs more info on why the lamestream media will never mention that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics killed 62 million people; The Peoples' Republic of China... Read more

Published on April 13 2004 by Rex Curry

4.0 out of 5 stars Strong argument for the impossible
We know that the media is left-wing ; everybody knows that, right? Not Eric Alterman and he'll tell you why the media is far more conservative than you think. Read more

Published on April 7 2004 by J. Davis

5.0 out of 5 stars Right wing media
Turn on the radio and listen to the drug-addled Rush Limbaugh or his neo-idiot companion Sean "Hamfist" Hannity. Read more

Published on Mar 27 2004

1.0 out of 5 stars Foolish
This book is nothing more than lies. Any reasonable person would not beleive this nonsense. All of the big names in the media are extremely liberal and very influential... Read more

Published on Mar 27 2004 by Andy Richardson

4.0 out of 5 stars ON THE LAMENTABLE QUALITY OF AMERICAN FISH & CHIPS...
Okee-Dokee...I have now slogged through Mr. Goldberg's book on how the media is too liberal and Mr. Alterman's book on how it is actually too conservative. Read more

Published on Mar 7 2004 by NotATameLion

1.0 out of 5 stars A Scientific Approach.
Mr. Alterman received kudos from the 4 & 5 star reviewers over his literary style and extensive research, whose minds were obviously already made up as to the thesis. Read more

Published on Feb 27 2004 by Will Foxx

1.0 out of 5 stars delusional
Sorry, Alterman, but I just don't buy it...

Alterman is very good at making his point in this polically charged answer to Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias. Read more

Published on Feb 27 2004 by zionred

3.0 out of 5 stars Wrong, but Right?
I've tried to make sense of the claims of the nattering nabobs of negativity here but what else makes sense other than that this is probably the only book about media bias most of... Read more

Published on Feb 19 2004 by Adam A. Odorizzi

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, the ammo I've been looking for
"What Liberal Media?" is the book for those of us who are conviced of the lunacy of the charge of liberal media bias but who don't have the time to do the research... Read more

Published on Feb 10 2004 by Jean E. Pouliot

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