Wed Jan 14, 2004 (Politics) Comments

[A friend e-mails me this article knowing I would find it amusing.]

Brent Bozell, head of the conservative watchdog group Media Research Center has issued a $1-million challenge to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw following Brokaw's comments in the current issue of Columbia Journalism Review that Bozell's complaint that the news media show a liberal bias "just doesn't hold up." Bozell said he would be willing to submit his group's research to a neutral third-party panel. "If this panel agrees with Brokaw's contention, the Media Research Center will donate $1 million to the anchor's favorite charity. If the panel agrees with us, NBC and Brokaw will donate $1 million to the Media Research Center. Oh, and to sweeten the pot we'll do this: we'll limit our evidence only to Tom Brokaw and NBC. Frankly, that's all the evidence we need to prove the point." Neither Brokaw nor NBC has responded to Bozell's challenge.

[My response.]

I have two opinions on this charge of liberal bias in mainstream media:

1. Of course the media is liberally biased! Look at the values and skills required of a journalist: suspicion of authority, skill at discerning the interests and motivation of one's sources, inclination to doubt moral authority, ability to separate fact from opinion or dogma, empathy for people of many walks of life, etc.

These values and skills are given more weight by the liberal mind than by the conservative mind. The liberal mind is inquisitive, wants to understand how the world works, and most importantly, why we find our world arranged as we do. Who benefits? Who loses? Who's free? Who's shackled? The conservative mind is confident, wants most of all to ensure that the answers developed by one's forefathers and one's superiors are established as certain fact, incontestably moral and true, and are obeyed without exception.

Take a look at how Dostoevsky contrasts the man-of-action (conservative) with the intelligent man (liberal) in his Notes from the Underground.

In actuality, in my opinion, this confidence found in conservatives is not confidence at all, but insecurity- the insecurity in one's own ability to decide what to believe in when one is confronted with opposing views. If one goes to great lengths to ensure that everyone believes the same thing, then one avoids the moral anxiety that liberals have learned to live with, have recognized is the natural state of man. But I digress...

In general, a liberal media is a sign of a healthy, open society. Take a look at the alternative, countries with conservative media: Russia, China, the entire Islamic World. Conservative media, by definition, is propaganda. Russia's conservative media defends the oligarchs. China's conservative media defends the Communists. And the Islamic World's conservative media defends the clerics and mullahs. I'll take our media, thank you, even if it may be a little biased.

2. Of course the media is not liberally biased. Does anyone remember Monica Lewinski? The 24-hour Clinton conspiracy machine? And, as Al Franken points out, other more detrimental biases exist in the media: do it first, do it cheap, dumb it down, etc.