State of the Media

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