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WaPo television writer spells out conservative dominance on television news

September 01, 2009 3:10 pm ET by Jamison Foser

During an online discussion today, Washington Post television writer Tom Shales made this emphatic point about the media:

CONSERVATIVES DOMINATE THE BROADCAST AND CABLE MEDIA IN THIS COUNTRY. They have very little to complain about in terms of access to an audience. 

That led to this exchange later in the discussion:

Atlanta, Ga.: Tom, I'm a big fan, but can you explain this sentence?

CONSERVATIVES DOMINATE THE BROADCAST AND CABLE MEDIA IN THIS COUNTRY

I think you meant to write that Liberals dominate the broadcast and cable media in the country. True, Fox News has the highest cable ratings, but other left-leaning outlets on cable and, certainly, network television are more numerous than right-leaning.

Do you have examples of the conservative dominance?

Tom Shales: Well now let me see. The networks are all owned by Big Business and Big Businessmen certainly tend to be conservatives. The Fox News Channel isn't a minor detail to be lumped in with other networks; it is a 24-hour-a-day conservative propaganda machine; MSNBC is liberal only during prime-time and late-night, don't you think? Phil Donahue is off the air and has been for years; he was too "liberal." Perhaps with a liberal in the White House, the pendulum WILL swing the other way for a while. Chacun a son gout, n'est-ce pas? Yes nothing like some bad high-school French to end a chat. Thank you very, very much for joining in.

Shales forgot to mention the three hours a day that Joe Scarborough hosts on MSNBC, or the consistent tendency of MSNBC anchors like Andrea Mitchell and Norah O'Donnell to adopt conservative-friendly framing.  And he didn't mention that CNN's only host with a clear ideological tilt is right-winger Lou Dobbs, he of the Birther conspiracy theories.

But that's picking nits: It's great to see a highly-respected employee of a massive media company acknowledge the conservative dominance on-air, as well as institutional factors like the tendency of news organizations to be owned by "Big Business."

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    • Author by kfraz43 (September 01, 2009 3:23 pm ET)
      2  
      Ah. That was refreshing. A cool drink of water after wading around the cesspool that is the media.
      Report Abuse
    • Author by MickD (September 01, 2009 4:13 pm ET)
      1  
      I wonder what that smarmy d-bag questioner thought of that!
      Report Abuse
    • Author by conservativeofamerica (September 01, 2009 4:18 pm ET)
        3
      I believe NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN AND MSNBC WELL I KNOW MSNBC AND NBC are owened by GE and jffery immelt, oh yes obama's economic advisor, oh yeah his company is doing well. NOT
      Report Abuse
      • Author by neon desert (September 01, 2009 5:27 pm ET)
        4  
        Democracy is fine for government, not so much for sentence construction. You and your buddies should elect one (1) delegate to write your comment for you. I suggest the following:

        Have a meeting to discuss which talking point you're going to promote. Have discussion about it, airing the pros and cons of each option. When there is no more evidence to add or discuss, take a vote to determine which single talking point will be your focus.

        Now, this is obviously the most important part: After determining your talking point, rather than have each person write a few words, delegate one single person to write the WHOLE comment.

        Give it a try next time, and good luck!
        Report Abuse
        • Author by conservativeofamerica (September 02, 2009 1:44 pm ET)
             
          this is great just a prefect example, because i'm new to this blog, my comments are reviewed and edited by people who do not want too know the truth about mark lloyd who was left out of my previous reply, and van jones making comments about how is that capitalism working for you today. oh boy this just proves the rights point about trying too stop all the, what does the left call it, oh yeah "racism" coming from the right. that reminds me why doesn't mediamatters have those clips of van jones and mark lloyd making their comments on here. hmmm lets see for media matters van jones made the capitalist comments to berkley university in jan. 09, and had an enviromental discussion in march of 09, where are those videos on how they will change this country. and how mark lloyd agrees with chavez on the government should have complete control of all broadcasting. well guess what that will never appear on this site, would you like too know why, just ask the site owner. because him, obama and lloyd might not be friends anymore and further more he might not get any funds from the government or should i say the people of this country. or you
          Report Abuse
    • Author by Limit Corp. Ownership (September 01, 2009 4:46 pm ET)
      2  
      And he didn't even mention the 90% of talk radio that the Fever Swamp controls.

      Report Abuse
    • Author by mustardman (September 01, 2009 6:29 pm ET)
      1  
      ???CNN's only host with a clear ideological tilt is right-winger Lou Dobbs"????

      SAY WHAT! What about John King? What about Wolf Biltzer. While they do not overtly tilt right they do it covertly by stacking the deck with the people they have on their shows and not questioning their facts.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by Vincenzo (September 01, 2009 6:53 pm ET)
        1  
        I'm not arguing with you but I personally think that it is because Blitzer and King are overrated and not particularly good at what they do rather than any ideology.
        Report Abuse
    • Author by classicliberal2 (September 01, 2009 9:12 pm ET)
      1  
      MSNBC's liberal line-up of the Ed Show, Olbermann, and Maddow (with conservative Chris Matthews sandwiched between) is a remarkable phenomenon. Liberals have to struggle to maintain even a single program in a given venue; to have three on the air at one time is something that has literally never happened in the history of the cable news networks. I do, unfortunately, expect this experiment to be short-lived--Shales is correct that MSNBC has a rather extreme allergy to liberal programs, and Donahue was, indeed, taken off the air for his politics. Still, it's been interesting to watch, if, for no other reason, because it puts the lie to the constant right-wing claim that liberal shows don't last because they can't hack it in the ratings (a claim which, of course, has always depended on the fact that liberal shows had never even been given a chance to hack it).

      Still, one shouldn't overstate this inroad into what remains a conservative-dominated field--conservative Joe Scarborough alone gets as much time on MSNBC as all three liberal shows, and there's still Mitchell and Matthews on top of his.

      ---
      Left Hook! The Blog
      http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/
      Report Abuse

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