10/22/09

What 'Controlling the Media' Really Means

The dysfunctionality of U.S. government and society is a direct consequence of hate radio, talk radio, right wing media, FOX, and all the rest of the wingnuts, and nattering nabobs of negativity. Peacenik never thought Peacenik would quote Spiro Agnew.

Of course the media doesn't want a progressive pushback against the media's rightwing slant. The biggest myth about the mainstream media is that it is liberal. At least the Internet has some progressive media and progressive points of view. Routinely described by the MSM as far left. The MSM is dying. It can't happen soon enough.

by Glenn Greenwald

The same media whining over criticisms of Fox was happy to be bullied and controlled by the Bush administration.

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Hypocrisy is far too common a feature of our political culture to comprehensively chronicle, particularly when there is a change of party control and each side starts doing exactly that to which they spent the last several years vociferously objecting; see here for a vivid example of that dynamic, from a new Pew poll released today:

The belief that the press should keep political leaders from doing things that should not be done often depends on who those political leaders are, or more specifically, which party controls the White House. Currently, in the midst of the Obama administration, two-thirds of Republicans (65%) support the so-called "watchdog role" for the press, compared with 55% of Democrats. But last year, while Bush was still in office, only 44% of Republicans felt it was good that press criticism keeps political leaders honest, and Democrats were much more pro watchdog (71% supported press criticism). This partisan pattern has existed since the question was first asked by Pew Research in 1985.

With hypocrisy that pervasive, who could ever hope to take note of all of it? Still, the complaints from America's Right -- and especially former Bush officials -- that the Obama administration is attempting to "control the media," all because the White House criticizes Fox News, is in a class of hypocrisy all by itself. That those petulant complaints are being amplified by a virtually unanimous press corps -- "it's Nixonian!" is their leading group-think cliché -- makes it all the more intolerable.

Read on...