Paul Greenberg is a conservative from Arkansas whose syndicated column frequently appears in the Albuquerque Journal. His piece today about the "Liberal Media Bias" – his capitals - makes two points.
First, he uses a memo written by ABC TV’s political director, Mark Halperin, to make "perfectly clear" the existence of LMB at ABC. What Halprin says in his memo is that the Bush camp is relying heavily on distortions, Kerry less so. He also says ABC’s job is to hold both sides accountable without falling into the trap of holding them equally accountable "when the facts don’t warrant that."
This, says Greenberg, is proof of liberal bias. No, it isn’t. It’s proof that Halperin wants to get beyond the idea of "balance," something news people often resort to when they cannot pin down the truth.
But Greenberg – misunderstanding this – uses it to make another argument "It’s the pretense of objectivity at the old established networks," he writes, "that offends, or should. Now it lies shattered."
I couldn’t agree more.
Greenberg doesn’t understand, I guess, that "balance" often is a pretense of objectivity. But no matter, He’s 100% correct, whatever his reasoning, in objecting to the networks’ "pretense to objectivity." That stance (adopted to protect media corporations from being punished for the sins of their news division), worked when the nation had a consensus on the big issues. That time – 1932 into the 1960s? - is long gone.
Fox has led the way by giving us a right-wing slant upfront.
I don’t know how the news operations at ABC, CBS and NBC should follow, what labels they ought to affix, but they ought to be thinking very hard on how to catch up to reality.
Moving to another issue, the Journal chose to pair Greenberg’s column today with one from Michael Kinsley (Los Angeles Times). Kinsely, having cited an egregious Bush campaign distortion, continues this way:
"The media – with an undiscriminating appetite for issues, and a professional commitment to be fair and balanced to Republicans and Democrats, true and false, good and evil, crunchy or creamy, or any other dichotomy the news confronts them with – were helpless to resist."
Congratulations to the Journal editor who saw the similarities and differences between Greenberg’s and Kinsley’s columns and paired them to provoke thought. Way to go.
PS I only wish the Journal’s editorial page layout permitted putting columns like these side-by-side. Oh, well
PPS Note that Kinsely writes "the media….were." Plural. Next he’ll be telling us that terrorism is not one thing to war on…..that it's not us against them...etc., etc.