Many people, when
looking for news, will not look at many different sources to achieve an
unbiased view of reality. The way news is today, if I want to find information
on current events, I need to look at multiple sources and piece the information
together, like pieces of a puzzle, to get the full picture. The easiest way to
get the current news is to turn on the television and tune to a major news
network. Ironically, most of the time the mainstream news networks like MSNBC,
CNN and Fox News are the most biased.
As research for an assignment in my
2012 election class, I found myself dumbfounded as I watched MSNBC and Fox News.
Flipping between the two news networks felt like stepping back and forth in
between alternate universes. Reporting on the election and giving post-election
analysis should be straight-forward because there is only one set of numbers to
look at yet Fox News and MSNBC reported very different stories. After the election,
Fox News wasted no time declaring that President Obama has no mandate and
criticized his “negative campaign.” On the other hand Rachel Maddow, anchor of MSNBC’s
nightly news program “The Rachel Maddow Show”, had a hard time hiding the smile
sprawled across her face while she discussed the results of the election.
In contrast
to Maddow's excited speech about the results of the election and the harsh
criticism of the Republican Party, Fox News criticized President Obama's
“negative” campaign and his lack of mandate. Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer
Prize winning columnist and a political commentator for Fox News, proposed that
even though Obama won the election, he did not come close to achieving a
mandate. Hendrick Hertzberg, best known as the principal political commentator
for the New Yorker and author of The New York article “Mandate with Destiny”, pointed
out that Obama’s “popular-vote margin exceeds four million, a million more than
George W. Bush amassed when he ran for reelection,” and also that “Obama’s electoral-college majority is also larger: 332
to Mitt Romney’s 206, as against Bush’s 286 to John Kerry’s 251” (Hertzberg,
Mandate with Destiny). Krauthammer and Fox News reporters criticized
President Obama’s lack of mandate even though the President has a larger
mandate than President Bush did when he ran for reelection. This is an example
of the conservative bias in the news and it is reporting like this that is
hurting our country by misrepresenting situations and information.
Being such
an influential source for information, mass media has the power to portray a
specific opinion and impose that opinion onto their audience. Media bias is the
bias of news producers and journalists within the mass media in the selection
of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The glaring
difference in journalism between MSNBC and Fox News is a result of opposing
media biases. Bias is unavoidable for many reasons including pressure from
corporate owners, pressure from advertisers, or pressure from the audience. The
conservative bias in the news today is far worse than the liberal bias and is
degrading the quality of accessible information to the public.
There are
many books that argue the media has a liberal bias, but a possible leader of
the pack is Ann Coulter. Coulter is the author of the New York Times best-seller
Slander. Ann Coulter was a lawyer before she became a very successful
author. In the first page of Slander, Coulter writes, “political debate
in this country has become insufferable,” and “liberals have become more bitter
and angry” (Coulter, 2). Coulter argues political debate has shrunk to mindless
babble due to “bitter and angry liberals.” Coulter continues with “progress
cannot be made on serious issues because one side is making an argument and the
other side is throwing eggs” (Coulter, 2). Coulter accuses liberals of
destroying the political arena, but I find myself asking, “What has Coulter
done to civilize the debate?” If Coulter wants to make the political arena a
more civilized and factual based place, she needs to start with herself.
Coulter's
final example in Slander, to prove that liberals have a death grip on
the media, was on the topic of the New York Times. Coulter was extremely
upset that the day after Dale Earnhardt, seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup
champion, tragically died in a race, she did not see a story on the front page
of the New York Times. Coulter goes on to explain that the lack of
respect for Earnhardt and the sport of stock-car racing, proves that liberals
have their hands around the media's neck and that they are “savagely cruel bigots
who hate ordinary Americans and lie for a sport” (Coulter, 205). Although her
choice of words may infuriate many people, Coulter makes a good point: Why
would the New York Times ignore the
tragic demise of Dale Earnhardt, a famous racer in the nationally popular sport
of stock-car racing? Maybe it is because the paper is being run by the “lefty
elite” like Coulter suggests. If so, this is a very powerful argument for the
legendary liberal bias in the media.
Turns out,
unfortunately for Coulter, that she either missed something or purposely did
not do the proper research for her book. Dale Earnhardt died on February 18th,
2001. On the 19th the New York Times ran a front-page story
of the Earnhardt's death written by sportswriter Robert Lipstyte. The headline
of this front-page story was “Stock Car Star Killed on Last Lap of Daytona
500.” Coulter missed this front-page story that ran the day after the event.
Did she accidently skip over the paper that day, or does this strange case of
disregard for the facts embody the conservative bias in our country?
Rupert
Murdoch is the majority owner of News
Corporation, which, in turn, owns the Fox Broadcasting Network, HyperCollins
publishing, which is one of the world’s leading English-language publishers, 20th
Century Fox, and over twenty-five magazines including the Weekly Standard.
News Corporation also owns over one hundred and thirty English language newspapers
including the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. In an
issue of Forbes magazine, Murdoch was ranked the fourth most powerful man in
the world because he is so wealthy and has so much influence through the
companies that he owns. (Franken, 59).
Murdoch uses Fox News Channel as a megaphone for his conservative political
ideologies. With that much money and power, and an empire comparable to Darth Vader’s,
how can an unbiased public network, like NPR, compete for influence? It
can’t.
It should be
easier to get unbiased news than news that has a corporate owner pulling the
strings. The problem is money; to achieve the goal of mainstream neutral
reporting, government funding must be available to match the funds of biased
news networks, like Fox News. “Federal funding is
essential to public radio’s service to the American public. Its continuation is
critical for both station and program producers, including NPR” (npr). In 2010,
NPR revenues totaled 180 million dollars, and only 4.3 percent of the total
funds this year came from the federal, state, and local government. To fix this
problem the government needs to provide funding to NPR so that their funds are
equal to that of major network giants like Fox News. NPR cannot compete for
influence without equal funding to do so.
A never
ending raging war of words is waging between two opposing political ideologies.
This is not a war fought with bullets and sweat, but is a clash of two titans
fighting for the slightest upper-hand. The battlegrounds are our television, radio,
and newspapers. Mass media is where the battle is fought day after day and the
battle-scars are evident. The causalities are not men and women, but the
credibility of the most influential source of political information, the news.
Works
Cited
Coulter, Ann H. Slander: Liberal Lies about the
American Right. New York: Crown, 2002. Print.
Fox News Channel,
Political news/opinion program, (2012; New York City:
Fox News Channel,
2012.), Television
Franken, Al. Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell
Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
London: Allen Lane, 2003. Print.
Hertzberg,
Hendrick. "Mandate with Destiny." The
New Yorker 3 Dec. 2012: n.
pag. The New
Yorker. 3 Dec. 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.
"Public
Radio Finances." Npr.
N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.
Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show, Political news/opinion program, Rachel Maddow,
(2012; New York City: MSNBC,
2012.), Television
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