Conservative Media Bias

As a group, conservatives spend a lot of time whining about how the media have a liberal bias. Normally smart people not in the media handle this the way they handle similarly valid issues like creationism and the War on Christmas: they completely ignore it. But, as anyone paying attention can see, the media actually have a systemic conservative bias, especially when it comes to Presidential elections. Since Palin is now doing so well in the polls, it's time to examine some reasons why the media hate America almost as much as her husband.

Media that doesn't even pretend: For some reason, conservatives don't produce many literate people, so print offenders like The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal op-ed page are balanced by good publications. But conservatives are good at loud fury with no attention to fact, so your Limbaughs and Hannitys and O'Reillys have huge ratings with virtually no liberal competition. Air America and Rachel Maddow just don't compete. That in itself tends to pull the national discourse rightward- millions of people watch Hannity lie every night, whereas liberals aren't even allowed to have TV shows.

Effort to balance an unbalanced discourse: In an attempt to avoid liberal bias, the media often sacrifice accuracy in exchange for balance. The problem is, we don't always have balanced arguments. Almost any policy area in this election is a good example, but let's take the failing economy. Obama has a multi-tiered, very specific plan, and he's had it for months. McCain has barely articulated anything, admits he knows nothing about economics, has a history of corruption, and for the moment has directed his rambling to "forming a committee" and attacking "greed". These are not leftist opinions; they are demonstrable facts. An accurate story about their economic plans would note that, whatever its flaws, Obama at least has a plan, whereas McCain has nothing but a history of failure and a scheme to attack a form of human desire. But the media wants to seem balanced, since, after all, many people believe very strongly in this incorrect information (maybe they wouldn't if it got reported as incorrect information). So they report the economic plans as a serious debate instead of as a plan vs. irresponsible bullshit.

Dishonesty from the right: If you wrote a movie in which the evil old white candidate and his crazy media-whore running mate told as many lies as those two people do in real life, everyone would say you were a terrible, ludicrous failure as a satirist. The right lies frequently, about pretty much anything they want. Because of the balance issue, the media are reluctant to call out these lies. Even the New York Times, more accurate than most, calls them distortions. You you could have impeccable journalistic integrity and still run a headline like, "McCain Repeatedly Lies About Obama's Record". In fact, you'd have more journalistic integrity than most. But the balance issue keeps those headlines from appearing, and the right has disproportionately exploited that. The most successful democrat (or President) of the last three decades, Clinton, got as far as he did largely because he was equally willing to be similarly shamelessly manipulative. Worse, even when the media chooses to discredit a lie, they still air it repeatedly, so a headline like "Obama: Does He Favor Sex-Ed for Pre-Schoolers?" appears over and over without the corresponding labeling of McCain as a terrible asshole. Integrity is actually a detriment in terms of winning the news cycle.

Good ideas are harder to explain than talking points: Any idiot can say "We must have victory in Iraq", and that's an easy thing to put in a story. Even if your counter is obviously correct, like "You have no idea what 'victory in Iraq' even means, do you Senator?" it still probably takes longer to parse, because it's probably a serious thought rather than a stupid talking point. "Thanks but no thanks" is easier to repeat than, "Palin fought for the bridge to nowhere, gave up as soon as the going got tough, and kept the money anyway to build a gravel road". Obama is good at slogans, but his commitment to actual policy makes it harder to communicate his plans.

Most actual members of the media, except for a few very-well-compensated assholes, are not actually partisan hacks. Nonetheless, when one party has legitimate governance as a top priority and the other is committed only to cynical electioneering, the systemic biases are difficult to overcome. Until the mainstream media ignores disingenuous cries for balance and focuses on truly objective reporting, fear-mongering and cynical lies will remain the easiest way to win an election, and candidates who respect the electorate will keep losing to fundamentally dishonorable people like John McCain.