Liberal Media Bias, Part Two

Yesterday I began my series on liberal bias in the media with a few numbers from a recent Gallup poll that shows that Democrats trust the mainstream media buy a two-to-one margin over Republicans, and with good reason, because it’s their message the media is delivering.

The funny thing is, it isn’t even that I’m so upset that the media has a liberal bias, it’s that the media itself is unable to see that they have this bias. They are unable to see it, because these leftist views are so ingrained that they see them as normal, and middle-of-the-road.

So much of the bias is “normal” to these people that they don’t even see it. For example, Bernard Goldman, in his book “Bias” recalls his cohost on CBS This Morning introducing a segment on sexual harassment saying “…has anything really changed? Just ahead we’re going to ask noted law professor Catharine MacKinnon and conservative spokeswomen Phyllis Schlafly to talk about this.”

Sounds innocent, but why was Schlafly identified as a conservative, but MacKinnon not identified as a radical feminist, a far left law professor, or even a plain old Liberal? She is afterall just as far to the left as Schlafly is to the right. This is after all the same women that famously implied that “all sexual intercourse is rape.” Not exactly “middle-of-the-road”, and yet the reason she was not identified as a liberal is that to the mainstream media, the views she holds ARE middle of the road.

As Goldman so eloquently points out, while the term “right-wing” is a common adjective in the media, the only time you will hear these same folks talk about “left-wing” is when they are reporting about the part of the airplane that caught fire before the crash.

The reason the media doesn’t identify liberal views on such subjects as abortion or affirmative action as liberal is because to these people these views are not liberal, they simply make sense. To mainstream America these are major elements of the liberal agenda, but to the liberals in the media these are just sensible, reasonable, rational views which just happen to coincide with their own.

Bias isn’t always black and white. It isn’t always a report like “Right wing whacko Congressman Joe Smith, Disgraced Republican from ______, today announced his health care plan. Considering Congressman Smith’s past support for the Iraq war and his no vote on SCHIP, it should come as no surprise that this piece of legislation he is proposing is nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake.”

That would be too easy to spot and go after. Too often the bias comes in the form of what side of an issue they fall down on, especially issues that are considered to be liberal or conservative in nature. Issues such as abortion, school vouchers, gay rights, the NRA or affirmative action have definite left and right positions. How the media reports on these issues show where the real bias is.

Think about Homelessness. Now homelessness is political in nature, because we all know that Ronald Reagan created homelessness. Now homelessness IS a real and serious issue, but it is also a perfect example of how journalists have become activists in our society. Now to really study this issue we have to look at data from the Reagan/Bush I years, since we all know homelessness ended the day Bill Clinton took office. How do we know this? The media of course.

During 1988, Reagan’s last year in office, The New York Times ran 50 stories on the homeless, including five on page one. A decade later, in 1998, they ran ten homeless stories, none on page one. In 1990, when George Bush the First was president, there were 71 homeless stories on the ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN evening newscasts. In 1995, with Bill Clinton in the White House, that number had dropped to nine. Homelessness couldn’t be a problem in the Clinton years, because homelessness is caused by Republicans.

And it isn’t just the sheer number, but the content. How many homeless are there in America. Given that they don’t have homes, they are not easy to count. In the late 80’s the U.S. Census Bureau estimated it to be 230,000. The General Accounting Office of Congress put the total between 300,000 and 600,000, and the Urban Institute figured there to be between 355,000 and 462,000 homeless.

In 1989 on CNN, reporter Candy Crowley reported that “Winter is on the way and three million Americans have no place to call home. Three Million?

In January of 1993 Jackie Nespral on NBC Weekend Today stated that “nationally right now, five million people are believed to be homeless… and the numbers are increasing”.

Charles Osgood, one of the most talented and respected men in broadcasting, reported “It is estimated that by the year 2,000, nineteen million Americans will be homeless unless something is done, and done now.

The CBS Evening News went it one further, finding homeless people who actually live in homes. This group is – get ready – the “Hidden Homeless”, people who because they can’t afford their own places are living at home with Mom and Dad.

While numbers are difficult to obtain, most reports from individual cities have shown that homelessness is dropping in most areas.

But overestimating the numbers is just the start. Robert Hayes, who ran the National coalition for New York told The New York Times in 1989 that when congressional committees and TV news producers contacted him for a homeless face to put on the air, “they always want white, middle-class people to interview.”

In a May 22, 1989 story in The New York Times by Gina Kolata (which was considered groundbreaking for its candor), it emerged that “drug and alcohol abuse have emerged as a major reason for the homelessness of men, women, and families”. It sounds so obvious now, but this was groundbreaking front-page news in 1989.

In the late 1980’s, Robert Licher of the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs analyzed 103 stories on ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts, as well as 26 articles in Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report. The results “provide a blueprint of advocacy journalism.” Stated Licher.

Only 1 source in 25 blamed homelessness on the personal problems of the homeless themselves, such as mental illness, drug or alcohol abuse, or lack of skills and motivation. The other 96% blamed social or political conditions such as high housing prices and the governments inability to provide adequate housing. And it’s not that those are not legitimate issues, but they do not account for 96% of homelessness.

As you can see, the left chooses to report what will most serve there ultimate goal. And I’m not saying that this issues and concerns don’t need to be reported, but the job of the media is to report the facts and let the public form their own opinions. It is not to conform the facts to fit THEIR opinions.

More examples tomorrow….