Here is my monthly column int he Albuquerque Tribune. It ran yesterday, August 25, 2005.
Liberal bias? Ha!
No, it’s jut scapegoating. And here’s the bitter laugh: Media haven’t dug deep enough.
By ArthurAlpert
It’s human and as least as ancient as the Old Testament: Nobody enjoys taking responsibility. So when bad stuff happens we blame somebody else. Individuals do it. So do nations, religious and ethnic communities - scapegoating, that is.
It cannot fail. Even if the goat talks back, the ensuing argument concerns the target’s guilt or innocence. And while that debate rages, the accuser is forgotten - also, what he’s hiding.
Scapegoating, now a professional sport, is behind the popular notion that "liberal media bias" distorts the news. I will now refute that, knowing full well that the scapegoaters have distracted me from probing the depths of their agenda.
Let’s use Mideast policy as a prism. As our Iraqi adventure approaches fiasco, the polls reveal most Americans are losing patience with the "war on terrorism." Fine, but how come the liberals who dominate the mainstream media (we’re told) didn’t keep us out of Iraq?
Look back at September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda terrorists, 15 of them Saudi and four Egyptian, using Saudi money, murdered almost 3,000 of us.
We pursued al Qaeda to Afghanistan, knocked off its Taliban protectors and moved on to attack Saudi Arabia, right? No, Iraq. In retrospect, it’s clear the White House exploited 9/11 to execute an old geopolitical scheme - oust Saddam Hussein and revolutionize the Arab World. They said Iraq and al Qaeda were in cahoots. That Iraq owned weapons of mass destruction. And brilliantly, they told us two topics – Iraq and al Qaeda – were just one. That is why they coined "the war on terror."
Why "in retrospect?" Why didn’t "liberal" news mediums dig, question, doubt? ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS News ducked. For tough skepticism, you had to watch the BBC’s coverage on KNME-TV/5. (Bless you, Channel 5.)
Ah, but Fox News didn’t hide. It blocked and tackled for the White House team. (If only Fox was a conservative network, honest and independent.) And talk radio played cheerleader.
The print press? Well, the "liberal" New York Times swallowed the White House bait on WMD. Later, the Times said mea culpa.
Nor was the Times alone. To this day, newspapers routinely write, "war on terror" without quotation marks. How trusting.
No, if liberal bias means a deliberate leaning to the left, it didn’t happen. Instead, most of the daily press performed traditionally – bowing and scraping before power.
So how did this liberal media bias foolishness arise? Remember Spiro Agnew? He led the modern Crusade against the effete and negative media. His aim - I was reminded in doing some Web research – was to quiet opposition to an earlier war of choice, Vietnam.
Editor Rem Rieder of the American Journalism Review wrote that the Nixon-Agnew White House sought "to portray the news media as a liberal cabal. That way the administration could dismiss critical press coverage as ideological rather than straight down-the-middle reporting."
There you have it - Agnew’s "liberal bias" story was a political tool. Still is.
(Incidentally, while Spiro chastised "radiclibs," the Feds heard he took payoffs and nailed him on tax evasion. Talk about having something to hide!)
That "liberal bias" slur is cynical. Simple-minded, too. It’s lots easier than analyzing the complex ways news gets shaped. What bias, for example, explains why Paris Hilton gets more ink than Karl Rove?
Maybe I’ll answer that next time. I’ve already spent my 600 words playing defense.
Advantage, professional scapegoaters.
Alpert is a semi-retired journalist in Albuquerque. Email him at: ArthurAlpert@swcp.com. His column runs the fourth Thursday of the month.
Posted by Arthur Alpert at August 26, 2005 02:42 PM