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As is traditional after elections, the losing side has whined about biased media coverage. According to some national Republicans, we saw stories like this:
After walking across Lake Michigan for a rally where
he fed a multitude with three loaves and five fishes,
Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was suffused in a supernal aura
as he pledged to end hunger and suffering.
Meanwhile, a callous and out-of-touch President Bush
sped past starving beggars . . .
I don't recall reading any such thing, and if Bill
Clinton got favorable press back in the days of didn't
inhale
and Gennifer Flowers, I missed it.
Nonetheless, there was ample bias:
· The media cover only the serious
candidates. Minor-party candidates can't convey their
message to the public, and so they'll never be
serious.
Ross Perot was an exception, but only because he could buy TV time. Two other candidates were on the ballot in all 50 states, and did the media ever tell you what the New Alliance or Libertarian candidates stood for? (National Public Radio was a delightful anomaly with its presentations of stump speeches from all presidential candidates.)
In Colorado, did we learn anything about Matt Noah except that his ads were graphic and controversial?
When I was an editor, I published interviews with every candidate -- Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Socialist Worker, write-in, independent, crackpot -- whom I could find. If someone takes the trouble to stand before the public, the public should know what he stands for.
That may explain why my career stalled in the boondocks; the great organs of public enlightenment prefer to ignore all political activity which doesn't emanate from a major party.
· The media are lazy. The rules of journalism
require two sides to the story.
So you find a
spokesman for each side, as with Roy Romer vs. Douglas
Bruce on Amendment 1. If there are other sides, they don't
get heard, or if a side doesn't have a convenient spokesman
who can reply with pithy quotes before deadline, that side
doesn't get heard. The media aren't about to go dig for
stories when it's so much easier to rewrite press releases,
pass along contrived statements and attend photo
opportunities.
If the coverage goes any deeper, it consists of interviewing school superintendents, police chiefs and others at the public trough, and getting them to predict what horrors loom if they don't get more money. Why didn't we ever hear a taxpayer explain the good things that could happen if she could keep more of her own money?
The critics are right that there's media bias. But they assume it's political, when in fact it is structural, a result of assumptions and sloth. The media go the easy route and focus on people, not money, policies and ideas. Thus modern journalism consists of creating celebrities to fawn over and then destroy, and that's the real problem.
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