State of the Media
I am an equal opportunity consumer of news. I have digital
subscriptions for the Dallas Morning News, New York Times, Washington Post and
the Wall Street Journal. Paper copies of
the DMN and the WSJ are dropped for the same price. I receive all of the U.S., U.K. and Canadian
cable news channels, and also many overseas English language and original
language channels via IPTV. Not that I
read and watch all of this stuff, but it’s available if and when I want it.
To be truly informed in the currently divided political environment
in the country, I believe one need to really pay attention to the source and
orientation of the news. It is no longer
possible (maybe it never was), to turn on regular broadcast channels at 6 pm
and 11 pm, or cable news reports, and get balanced news. What we get instead are partisan commercials
masquerading as news. This is
particularly true of the leftist oriented news media which is now preponderant.
There are bias checkers which purport to define the
political orientation of any media outlet.
The problem is that many of these “bias checkers” are themselves slanted
politically, so they can lead you down their desired path, and not necessarily
a neutral path. I’ve done a fair bit of
research to determine which bias and fact checkers are indeed neutral. Although
my conclusions are s subjective, I think they are as good as any honest seeker
of neutrality will find.
I Have been using “Media Bias Fact Checking” to rank all
media as “Right”, “Left” or “Balanced”, with good results. I use “Snopes” and “FactCheck.org” to check
the veracity of “news statements”, but take both of these latter with a grain
of salt. Using these guides, I pretty
much stay away from the aggressively right or left media like Alex Jones or
Breitbart on the right, and Huffington Post or The New Yorker magazine on the
left. I try to use the balanced outlets
like Reuters, USA Today or AP. When I
read publications that are biased, like the New York Times or the Wall Street
Journal or National Review; or watch CNN or MSNBC or Fox News, I know their
orientation and use their reports accordingly.
It is a sad pass that one cannot watch a major news outlet
or read a major newspaper without being led down a biased path, these days preponderantly
a leftist path. I have
conservative/libertarian leanings, so my progressive friends will say that my own
comments are therefore biased in that direction. I take pains for them not to be biased, and I
have to say that while most left leaning media are strictly one-sided and will
not give the other side a break, the more right leaning media seems fairer,
giving a more equitable representation to the opposing side.
To test this, all one has to do is watch a few hours of mid-day
news coverage on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
Fox will frequently show the liberal point of view on an issue and will
frequently criticize right wing leaders.
CNN and MSNBC rarely, if ever show the conservative point of view and
will only rarely criticize left wing leaders.
A similar test is to read the National Review, an acknowledged
conservative publication, but one that regularly shows the opposing view and also
regularly criticizes conservative leaders and positions. Then read the New York Times and Washington
Post, where you’ll find much more biased, and strictly pro-left coverage. Their opinion pages/columnists are strongly
leftist, but their front page coverage is not too far behind.
The harm of all of this is that most users of the media,
particularly our youth, do not vet the news sources as I’ve outlined above. They cannot help being exposed and affected by
the constant barrage of what amounts to pro-left propaganda posing as
news. The result is a whole class of
citizens, many educated in left-leaning schools, and now liberally exposed to an
interminable list of leftist media. Is
it any wonder that a coastal and urban elitist class has emerged in the
country?
Ray Gruszecki
November 21, 2017
