"What Liberal media"??

[Gimpy]

If you believe there is liberal mainstream media in the United States, then you were probably Ann Coulter's bunkmate in the Heritage Foundation psycho ward for rabid right wing psychotics. With mercilessly thorough documentation, Eric Alterman decimates the farcical notion that the American media is dominated by liberals.
Given a corporate-owned press that benefits from the deregulation and tax cut environment that enriches the wealthy, it's a testament to the robust lungs and potty-mouthed tenacity of right wing media celebrities that they can perpetuate the myth of a progressive mainstream media.
Alterman's book is a touchstone of truth amidst the dross of mad rants by manic GOP "pundit celebrities." Alterman, for instance, documents how the Wall Street Journal "editors are so deeply committed to the far-right propaganda they espouse, they frequently contradict the reporting in their own newspaper." Armed with 40 pages of footnotes, Alterman vanquishes any notion of a liberal press. What we are left with is a media that serves as a propaganda news outlet for the right wing of the Republican party. The modern D.C. journalist, for the most part, is really a public relations writer for the White House. Even if you've known how "in the tank" the media is with the Republican Party, this book will get you even angrier. When you finish, make a commitment to voice your objections to the media as often as you can.
The question of whose interests the media protects -- and how -- has achieved holy-grail-like significance. Is media bias keeping us from getting the whole story? If so, who is at fault? Is it the liberals who are purported to be running the newsrooms, television and radio stations of this country, duping an unsuspecting public into mistaking their party line for news? Or is it the conservatives who have identified media bias as a reliably inflammatory rallying cry around which to consolidate their political base as they cynically "work the refs?" The media has become so pervasive in our lives that regardless of exactly where on the ideological fence you sit, the question of media bias has become all but unavoidable.
Most of the criticism (and anger) has so far emanated from the political Right, which has offered us the rather unconvincing argument that a systematic Left bias is destroying the quality of news and debate in our country today. Journalist and historian Eric Alterman begs to differ.
What Liberal Media? confronts the question of liberal bias and, in so doing, provides a sharp and utterly convincing assessment of the realities of political bias in the news. In distinct contrast to the conclusions reached by Ann Coulter, Bernard Goldberg, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly, Alterman finds the media to be, on the whole, far more conservative than liberal, though it is possible to find evidence for both views. The fact that conservatives howl so much louder and more effectively than liberals is one significant reason that big media is always on its guard for "liberal" bias but gives conservative bias a free pass.
After reading What Liberal Media? you will understand that the real news story of recent years is not whether this newspaper, or that news anchor, is biased but rather to what extent the entire news industry is organized to communicate conservative views and push our politics to the right-regardless of how "liberal" any given reporter may be.
What People Are Saying about "What Liberal Media?"
The myth of the liberal media is an idea that is gaining currency; this is a strong opening salvo in that much-needed discussion."
-- Ilene Cooper, Booklist, American Library Association
"The incredulity begins with the title What Liberal Media?, journalist Eric Alterman's refutation of widely flung charges of left-wing bias, and never lets up. The book is unlikely to make many friends among conservative media talking heads. Alterman picks apart charges made by Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, George Will, Sean Hannity, and others (even the subtitle refers to a popular book by former CBS producer Bernard Goldberg that argues a lefty slant in news coverage). But the perspectives of less-incendiary figures, including David Broder and Howard Kurtz, are also dissected in Alterman's quest to prove that not only do the media lack a liberal slant but that quite the opposite is true. . . . For liberals hoping someone will take off the gloves and mix it up with the verbal brawlers of the right, Eric Alterman is a champion."
-- John Moe for Amazon.com.
"Alterman . . . seeks to debunk the notion [of a liberal bias in media] and goes so far as to argue that bastions of alleged liberalism like the Washington Post and ABC News 'have grown increasingly cowed by false complaints of liberal bias and hence, progressively more sympathetic to the most outlandish conservative complaints.' He largely succeeds: whatever your politics, Alterman delivers well-documented, well-argued research in compulsively readable form."
-- Publisher's Weekly
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