Media Matters

Fooled you. I bet you thought I was going to post about the brouhaha with O'Reilly or the one with Limbaugh. Well, I am, but only tangentially. Caught an interesting segment on O'Reilly tonight. He had Bernie Goldberg and J Hall on to talk about the media. Well, O'Reilly was ascribing the precipitous drop in ratings for CNN and MSNBC to the disgust of viewers with the recent antics. Goldberg had a different take. He ascribed it to the inclusion of minorities and women, as in they tend to be more liberal. From my perspective, he flubbed it. As he began, I thought, "he gets it." He mentioned how the news business used to be, how you had people from all walks, those who had gone to college and those who had worked their way up. That's the crux of the problem as I see it. There is no ideological diversity. What's missing is any perspective other than that of the Journalism professors at these schools.

The segment reminded me of an experience today as I was waiting in the Doctor's office. Having no book with me, I was limited to the magazines on hand. I picked up a fairly recent Newsweek and was dismayed at the blatant political agenda on the part of a "news" magazine. After subscribing for years, I had canceled when they started the steady diet of Bush bashing, but even I didn't realize just how far over to the Dark Side they had gone. Mind you this is not The New Republic or even The Weekly Standard.

To give you just a little example, I looked at their CW (Conventional Wisdom) table. They had the surge listed and gave it a neutral, something along the lines that it seemed to be working but the statistics were lies. Lies, or false, either was offensive. Nowhere have I seen proof that the statistics were not true. And even if they weren't, if you are going to make that claim in a news magazine, you had better prove it. Further, I find it a shocking lack of civility and proper respect to frame it in those terms. I kept reading, and there was an article on Hilary Clinton that was positively glowing in its admiring tone. No agenda here, huh. Oh, and by the way, Bernie, every Newsweek talking head I've seen is a white, aging, baby boomer male. But don't get me started on the boomers.

And the last media matter, the ascent of Rick Sanchez. I know he has his detractors, but I have always liked him and followed him since his MSNBC days. After serving as Anderson Cooper's lackey for a while, he now has his own show: "Out in the Open." As I watched him dealing with the topic of immigration recently, I was struck with the possibilities of having a Hispanic or Latino voice in English as the anchor of a national evening news show. After his run in with O'Reilly over the Media Matters thing and his pointed questioning of Ann Coulter about the 9/11 widows, I have to worry, though, that he will be co-opted by CNN. Think Joe Scarborough.

Enough! Good night and good luck.