What Liberal Media: The Truth About Bias and the News – Eric Alterman

What Liberal Media: The Truth About Bias and the News – Eric Alterman, Basic Books/Perseus Book Group (2003) 322p. (S) ****

The myth of the so-called liberal media (SCLM) is powerful and pervasive among the conservative dominated corporate media. Taking this myth head-on, Alterman has carefully exposed the fraud behind the individuals and institutions that constantly cry foul that they are in some way being slighted or victimized by the “liberal” media. Beginning with the more obvious blowhards of the hyper-reactionary media (usually found in talk radio), the likes of which include Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews, and Mike Savage, Alterman’s analysis still is able to find grace and accuracy, even when his subjects are anything but. One thing that is missing, however, is an explanation of why in 2002 and early 2003 during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, the political books on retailers’ shelves were virtually entirely from the extreme right (i.e. Kenneth Pollack and others) that were then advocating for the invasion of Iraq. Why, at that critical moment in our history, was their such a paucity of progressive voices in book bound print? (Granted, there were many voices in the periodical print and online that deserve recognition, whose against the grain courageousness rang true and resolute.) It was only until later, after the invasion had been initiated that books from the left, like Alterman’s, became widely available. While he writes that, “the neoconservative domination of the U.S. media’s foreign policy debate is hardly atypical,”(p.18) Alterman fails to explain why this is so. Only in later pages do we learn of the massive conservative infrastructure of think-tanks and well funded foundations, that so seamlessly moves staggering amounts of financial resources in support of conservative causes.

After taking us through the subjects of the U.S. punditocracy, race and economics in the media, Alterman takes a look at the anomalous 2000 U.S. presidential election. “It is not entirely fair to say that the qualified candidate and Vietnam veteran [Al Gore] with the popular positions representing the successful administration actually lost to the relatively unqualified one with the unpopular positions, who ducked Vietnam [George W. Bush] and did not have much of a record. Al Gore did win the popular vote . . . ”(p.148) Given the disaster we presently find ourselves in in this country, these are important basic facts to be reminded of and to remember. Alterman goes on to write, “ the . . . conclusion that the disparity in coverage [of candidates Gore and Bush] was due to a political bias in favor of Bush and against Gore, is one [Alterman] is not comfortable making.”(p.158) But seemingly conversely he writes later on that, “[T]he contrast between the treatment of [Bush] and vice-president Cheney have received and that meted out by the media to the Clintons is enough to make one wonder if the media have not made some sort of silent pact among themselves to torment only Democratic presidents.”(p.223) But in his final pages, Alterman seems to find his way clear to a more lucid answer, “ . . . conservatives also know that if the press is effectively intimidated, either by the accusation of liberal bias or by a reporter’s own mistaken belief in the charge’s validity, the institutions that conservatives revere – the military, corporate America, organized religion, and the powerful conservative groups themselves – will be able to escape scrutiny and increase their influence.”(p.266-267) And since it is usually the most financially successful institutions in our economy that have the disposable resources to dump into conservative causes, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that there is such a grave imbalance in funding and momentum that tilts right. To quote a figure from another era, in order to get to the real answers, one must simply “follow the money.”

Alterman has written a solid, well documented work (there are forty pages of notation alone). It is essential reading and a good first step to anyone interested in the long struggle to “take back the media.”