Media bias and the culture wars

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), July, 2004 by Robert J. Bresler

IT IS HARD TO SEPARATE our understanding of the media from the larger culture. Just as the cultural landscape has been altered over the past several decades, so has the media--its quality and its politics. This cannot be otherwise. Is the media biased against conservatives and against the left (as opposed to mainstream liberals)? No doubt, but I would not overestimate its impact on public opinion or the direction of the country's politics.

From the 1930s to the 1960s, when liberalism was the dominant ideology and the Democratic Party ruled government, liberals did not have the influence on the media they have today. In those years, Time magazine was run by Henry Luce, a feisty conservative, although no reactionary. Newsweek was so bland and careful that its politics were hardly discernable. U.S. News & World Report, under the iron rule of conservative editor-publisher David Lawrence, was characterized by its easy-to-read economic reporting--complete with many charts and graphs that basically served the businessman who could not take the time to wade through The Wall Street Journal. The New Fork Times was the good gray lady, understated, bland, slightly right of center, and regarded as the paper of record for its accuracy and coverage. The Los Angeles Times was run by the Chandler Family and was chummy with the California Republican establishment. The New York Herald Tribune was just as chummy with the New York Republican establishment. The editors of the Washington Post, slightly more liberal than the other newspapers, were very close with the Kennedys. The Chicago Tribune, meanwhile, was the voice of irascible midwestern conservatism, excoriating the New Deal and the Roosevelts.

Routinely, most of the local newspaper editorial boards endorsed the Republican candidate for president, although voters paid little attention. The television news networks with their 15-minute encapsulated news programs--seemed to lack any point of view. Edward R. Murrow's famous attack on Joe McCarthy in 1954 was a dramatic exception and harbinger of things to come. The major columnists--James Reston, Walter Lippmann, Arthur Krock, the Alsop Brothers, Marquis Childs, and Doris Fleeson--hovered around the center. The newspapers in the Scripps-Howard and Hearst chains certainly were conservative. Most reporters did not come out of elite colleges and liberal journalism schools. Communications hardly was a recognized major at most universities. Reporters, largely male, were known as a hard-drinking, cynical, tough, and not particularly ideological lot.

Most of the commentators in the days before talk radio--Alastair Cooke, Erwin E. Canham, Eric Sevareid, and Murrow--reflected a kind of centrism with their five-15 minute commentaries. There were Paul Harvey and Fulton Lewis on the right and Edward Morgan on the left, but they were the exceptions. The opinion programs on radio and television such as "American Forum of the Air" and "Author Meets the Critics" often were disputatious. Nonetheless, they were marked by a degree of civility.

The common consensus and culture that created this type of media long has disappeared. Many locally owned and operated newspapers have been bought out by large chains. The great conservative media moguls--Luce, McCormick, Hearst, and Lawrence--are gone; only Ruppert Murdoch still fits that bill. The politics and the culture of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News have changed dramatically. The New York Times is hardly the gray lady of the past; the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, and L.A. Times now are routinely liberal; most newspaper columnist are predictably liberal or conservative; and few bother with reportage, that combination of reporting and commentary. (Robert Novak is an exception.)

The line between news programs and entertainment on radio and television often is blurred beyond recognition as the sensatioanl, lurid, and controversial push out any sustained focus on complex issues. Since Watergate, the Washington press corps, hunting for scandals and the sensational, has moved to a far more contentious attitude toward the White House and Congress. It is hard to believe that the public is starved for opinion. Cable television and talk radio seem to give us nothing but when we need thorough, disinterested reporting and analysis. Almost everybody in the media has chosen sides in these tiresome culture wars. If you look at the major magazines such as Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Harper's, they all reflect a distinctive liberal perspective. If you add to that the liberal bias of many of the major foundations, college and university faculties, and most of the publishing houses, you have clear liberal domination of much of what we call elite media. Given this state of affairs, it should come as no surprise that conservative talk radio has filled a particular need. It has taken the place of old right-leaning newspaper dailies as an outlet for conservative opinion.

When you have such a profound cultural division in the country, it is hard to find those who are above the fray. Cultural differences are, in fact, far more profound than political differences. Whether one is culturally liberal or conservative defines the way you see the world, your basic values. People seem to choose up sides, especially those in the world of communications--be it media or academia. This is most unfortunate. For example, it is hard to find an intelligent columnist or commentator whose views or conclusions on a particular issue cannot be predicted. The public needs a calm, intelligent discussion of issues where the participants recognize the complexity of a topic and help listeners and readers work through it. Too often, the so-called experts on TV are paid political consultants or spokesmen for the various ideological think tanks that populate Washington, D.C.