A rare political post
Sep. 12th, 2008 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakYou know, every time I hear or read the phrase "liberal media" in an American context I mentally add "I do not think that phrase means what you think it means". Because speaking as a non-American who visited the states quite often since she was 14 (and I'll be 39 this month), the American media range from mildly conservative to right of Attila the Hun. What none of the big papers or networks are is "liberal" in any way this liberal from Germany would define the term. Let alone "leftist". Also, post-9/11, with all the embedding going on, the only media outlets NOT in bed with the goverment, kowtowing to same or keeping silent about any criticism they might have out of fear of appearing "unpatriotic" seemed to be the satirical talkshows. Certainly not any actual news reporting agencies. This has become a little bit better in recent years, but I still don't see any "liberal" media in the US. But every now and then, I come across something like this, and I feel hopeful that there are at least some journalists who, whether or not they are liberal, are certainly independently-minded and unafraid to speak out:
One of the best speeches I've heard on tv. I just hope it was watched by as many people as possible.
One of the best speeches I've heard on tv. I just hope it was watched by as many people as possible.
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Date: 2008-09-12 08:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 09:04 am (UTC)(It's been over nine years, since I saw the B5 ep where Delenn was talking about the application of terror?...)
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Date: 2008-09-12 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 08:27 pm (UTC)Cheney's proposed impeachment... (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042401542.html)
...and Bush. (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/11/kucinich.impeach/)
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Date: 2008-09-13 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 01:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 10:35 am (UTC)I wonder what its impact will be. Thanks for posting this.
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Date: 2008-09-12 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 10:45 am (UTC)There's enough real criticism to make of the McCain approach to 9/11 in the fact that, like the guy who keeps going back to Ben Hur, taking bets in the lobby on the chariot race, forever deluding himself into believing that this time, this time, the wheels won't come off his favorite's chariot, we will somehow find bin Laden by moving ever more of our military focus away from Afghanistan to Iraq . There's no need to childishly misrepresent that belief as blackmail. We all know it does not meak what Keith pretends to think it means.
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Date: 2008-09-12 10:52 am (UTC)LOVE your Ben Hur simile. And you've just defined the Olbermann MO to a T.
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Date: 2008-09-12 11:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 10:50 am (UTC)(This clip crashed Firefox on my computer. I swear I'm not making this up. EVEN MY BROWSER IS LESS LIBERAL THAN OLBERMANN!)
...And if you think he's going to convince anyone not already convinced 200% with this kind of rant, I suspect you are nourishing happy illusions.
Anyway, he and Matthews weren't demoted because of opinion pieces like this one, which he still will produce; but because they did not disguise the same opinions when they were supposed to report or anchor the, you know, news.
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Date: 2008-09-12 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 08:08 pm (UTC)That, in fact, WAS the problem: as you say, they are not really anchors, they are opinion commentators, which is a different function; and the channel decided their double act did not work in that job.
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Date: 2008-09-12 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 08:46 pm (UTC)MSNBC got cold feet when the Olbermann-Matthews jokes started flying; but you're right that their performance was predictable: and then it's a question whether you want to alienate half your audience for good.
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Date: 2008-09-12 08:53 pm (UTC)This is why I mostly stick with NPR and the Daily Show. Not that either of those sources is perfect, but they've pretty much found their formulas at this point.
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Date: 2008-09-12 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 07:57 pm (UTC)... anyway. Yes, the Obamites have sworn they would prosecute all your bugbears, PLUS Karl Rove, and others. WAY to get Rove solidly onside in the McCain camp, which was not his first inclination (he remembered the 2000 primaries; this is a man who Bears A Grudge For America, Olympic-class.) But now, since he'd rather stay out of jail, thankyouverymuch, as well as save the couple of million bucks in lawyers fees this would cost him, he is contributing his stellar county-by-county battleground States knowledge, a Janet-and-John version of which can be seen here (http://www.newsweek.com/id/156494). If McCain wins, I'd say one percentage point at least will be directly attributable to the Jacobins screaming for judicial revenge...
... and so, my answer on Olbermann's rant swinging a few voters into the Dem camp: possibly, but not the ones who are needed to win the half-dozen states that will clinch the election - Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, West Virginia, even Florida for different reasons. The first five are working-class, Scots-Irish, Rust Belt, and never mind that I don't think you can play with 9/11 themes in a way that will resonate in those very patriotic places; Olbermann's vocabulary, which I personally admire, is far too elitist; it zooms above the head of the voters he needs. (Yes, it's a superb rant, even if I disagree with every single bit of the contents; but in terms of communicating on TV, does it work? Not sure.) As for Florida, the areas where the vote will be most contested are populated by significant numbers of usually Democrat-voting New York retirees, and they won't like the 9/11 theme in itself, because if their personal ties to NYC; if anything, this can swing their vote to McCain.
This rant will play beautifully in solid-blue bastions, which is of no conceivable electoral use. The only state in play where it might make a difference is Colorado, and even there...
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Date: 2008-09-12 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 12:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 11:56 am (UTC)Since the early 90s, those 'elite' media outlets have become not only less liberal but less relevant, with right wing talk radio and cable news taking their appeal directly to discontented segments of the public. The more vocal they get, of course, the more they get to set the agenda -- and since a lot of them are still fighting culture wars of the 70s, they assert, and may even really believe, that the elite media has a liberal bias. (It's more liberal than THEM anyway). And apparently if you say something enough, on television, it becomes true for a lot of people. Orwell would be proud.
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Date: 2008-09-12 01:45 pm (UTC)I think this is also the only explanation why someone like George Bush, son of a millionaire, grandson of a millionaire, privileged offspring of a family hailing from New England, was able to sell himself as a "man of the people" going up against "The Washington Elite". And now they're trying to sell that again. As mind-boggling as the phrase "liberal media" is, it's not nearly as mind-boggling as the fact that a candidate from the party who has been in goverment for the last 8 years and who has been ruling Congress for 12 of the last 14 years isn't just claiming to be "against the Washington elite" but that people actually believe this crap. It's just - well, like you said. Pure Orwell.
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Date: 2008-09-12 03:58 pm (UTC)I would think this aspect would seem odd to voters in, well, just about any other country, where elections are a referendum on the party in power more so than on an individual. That's just a guess, though.
(Also, I'd suggest that the people who are rallying vocally behind McCain/Palin are not people who actually WANT change from the status quo).
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Date: 2008-09-12 04:03 pm (UTC)No, you're right. I mean, I can't speak for voters in all other countries, but over here despite the prominence of the occasional politician it's the party who gets elected (or not).
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Date: 2008-09-12 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 02:30 pm (UTC)I think Palin scares me most out of all of them.
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Date: 2008-09-12 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 01:38 pm (UTC)And I was disgusted by the use of 9/11 in such a fashion. It didn't surprise me...these ARE politicians we're talking about, so by definition they have no class and no honor...but it revolted me.
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Date: 2008-09-12 01:53 pm (UTC)(On the other hand: when I used the train at NY central station, there was this wall with photos of the missing and dead, and letters. This tribute to the dead made me cry, and was everything all the exploitation wasn't.)
Terrific Xena icon, btw!
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Date: 2008-09-12 01:47 pm (UTC)I hardly even watch the news anymore, to be honest - save the satire. 'Liberal' my ass.
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Date: 2008-09-12 02:54 pm (UTC)And you're right, of course. Americans who bitch and whine about the liberal media have apparently never held a copy of the The Guardian, let alone The Morning Star. (I don't even think we HAVE a Communist/Socialist newspaper being printed in the States anymore.)
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Date: 2008-09-13 12:53 am (UTC)There are some, but they're tiny, local, generally non-profit, and centered in university towns. We have one in Ithaca, for example -- I run into people handing it out downtown now and then -- but Ithaca is, as they say, 10 square miles surrounded by reality. :-)
So yeah, in practical terms, we don't have anything further left than, say, The Nation. (Which is pretty damn left for America.)
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Date: 2008-09-13 01:25 am (UTC)I shouldn't have said that about Commie papers. I know Berkeley has a People's Voice or something.
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Date: 2008-09-13 06:28 am (UTC)Also, they are international, they are intelligent, and they cover NEWS instead of infotainment.
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Date: 2008-09-12 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-13 01:12 am (UTC)I see the "liberal media" term tossed around most often lately in angry hardline right-wingers' responses to some of the less-flattering stories that have come out about the emphatically not liberal Sarah Palin. But, I also see my liberal friends grumbling about how "in the GOP's pocket" the media is, being "too afraid to call out McCain on his BS" until now. Which just makes me wonder further if neither side is particularly correct: if both sides are pissed off at the media, then is it really favoring one side that strongly over the other?
A slightly oversimplified metaphor for my view of the media would be Rita Skeeter's scathing comment to Hermione: "The Prophet exists to sell itself." I think by and large, the media goes where they think the big, juicy story is, and doesn't much care whether the meat is liberal or conservative. Yes, the media's going nuts mining the Palin vein right now, but it's because she's the new, unknown, "hot" thing. (Would the media be obsessing over the GOP VP pick as much now if it were, say, Mitt Romney? No, because he's not "new" anymore.) Just like it went nuts over Obama a year ago, when he was the new, unknown "hot" story. The media's digging for dirt on Palin, sure - but they didn't exactly give Obama a pass in that area, either (or Hillary, or Kerry, or Howard Dean, or Bill Clinton, or a number of other liberals I could name).
I saw the Olbermann clip on another friend's LJ - it does seem like he goes off the rails somewhat partway through, but I do agree with the major point he made: 9/11 being turned into a product, a political tool, instead of something to be respected. It's a big part of why Bush is a four-letter word to me.
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Date: 2008-09-13 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-13 10:45 pm (UTC)I find the same thing, even taking into account the fact that UK politics is doing the shuffle-to-the-right thing as well!