# WTF is "liberal media" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 9, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428 "2015-01-09T19:48:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/61 "2015-01-10T23:34:58Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > I see it most in religious topics. PBS and NPR are supposed to be educational, so they lean towards explaining things with science. You would probably say, of course, that’s how things should be explained. But for religious people who think that science is a form of belief, the religious side doesn’t get as much air time. I’m not religious, but I can see how some people might get that impression. Religious peoples have their own privately-funded (tithe-paid or for-profit) broadcasting/print/online media networks. The division of media into a fact-based sector and a faith-based sector is an old honored American way. As for public funding, the state is to have no input into religious media—no establishing of religion. First Amendment. > [@](#): > > I also see a slant towards women’s issues in media like HuffPo. When there’s an item with a woman’s issue in it, HuffPo will ring the bell loud and clear. Huffpost, founded by a woman, fancy that, is one general news site that gives adequate coverage to matters concerning women. Miracle of the internet: with essentially no physical limit on file uploads, it lets a gazillion flowers bloom. Also, Huffpost is broken down and channelized into any number of sections and subsections, of which women’s articles are just one. It isn’t that Huffpost is slanted toward women, it’s that media for ages had been the province of men and heavily slanted to men’s views. How shocking to find out what gender equality looks like. > [@eschereal](#): > > Oddly enough, I was reading something on al Jaz a while back where they referred to a person as being “neo-liberal”, which seemed to be more similar in description to neo-con (von Mises-like) than any kind of “liberal” ideology I was ever familiar with. I guess outside of the US, the poles get reversed (in Germany, the Greens have been described as “conservatives”, which has an underlying logical sense to it). If I understand the readers’ digest versions of political ideologies, neoconservatives, so called, are for projecting America’s military (primarily military/strategic/political, and incidentally economic) might around the world; neoliberals, so called, are for favoring the interests of global capitalism. Whatever concern the neoconservatives have for capitalism relates to how it can advance America’s projection of military force. Whatever concern the neoliberals have for military might relates to how it can advance capitalism. Neoliberal is a term used in Europe and other parts of the world, but not widely known in the US of America. As witness of that, my American Google Chrome recognizes _neoconservative_ in its dictionary, so-called, but puts a squiggly red line under _neoliberal_. Neither of those two necessarily takes much of a position on social issues (although I’d bet neoliberals probably generally correlate with liberal social views). The Libertarians and the hippies have that area covered. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/62 "2015-01-10T23:35:49Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Or that like most Americans you have no real idea what an actual far left person is like, and mistake centrists for left wing extremists. So most American’s are wrong, but you see the world for what it is? A rather supercilious view, no? ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/63 "2015-01-10T23:46:57Z")
[A satirical](http://www.theonion.com/articles/media-having-trouble-finding-right-angle-on-obamas,2703/) piece from noted right wing website The Onion. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/64 "2015-01-11T00:08:22Z")
> [@Waymore](#): > > So most American’s are wrong, but you see the world for what it is? Americans are on the whole willfully provincial and refuse to even recognize just how narrow and far right the American political spectrum is. Whether _I_ “see the world for what it is” or not makes them no more perceptive. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/65 "2015-01-11T00:39:17Z")
There used to be another word we used for “liberal media”, but that has fallen out of fashion in polite company. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/66 "2015-01-11T01:29:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Americans are on the whole willfully provincial and refuse to even recognize just how narrow and far right the American political spectrum is. Whether _I_ “see the world for what it is” or not makes them no more perceptive. You’re doubling down on the “everybody but me is blind” theory. I disagree, but that’s your prerogative. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/67 "2015-01-11T01:52:56Z")
> [@Waymore](#): > > [A satirical](http://www.theonion.com/articles/media-having-trouble-finding-right-angle-on-obamas,2703/) piece from noted right wing website The Onion. If you’re saying they are a “right wing website” as a joke, then please use an emoticon to signify this. Otherwise, some will believe your characterization. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/68 "2015-01-11T02:10:02Z")
The media are only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them. I have only read the last portions of this thread, but Der Trihs seems to be on the correct track, in that the Overton Window is small in a lot of places, but it’s particularly small in the US, and it’s been shifted substantially to the right, and that _people on the Right don’t even know this._ The Left moved to the Center, the Center moved to the Right, and the Right moved into a mental hospital, in a gradual process beginning around 1980, with damaging economic and social consequences, and perhaps apocalyptic, terminal environmental consequences. Witness the reaction among conservatives or reactionaries when one opposes the corporate media, or Democrats, from the left. I thought that perhaps things were changing around the turn of the century/millennium, with the global justice movement (called “antiglobalization” by the stupid corporate media) against neoliberalism, but it seems like the wars sapped so much of that momentum. I participated in Occupy, hoping that it would herald the rebirth of that sort of thing, and as many good things came out of that, it seemed like Americans had forgotten how to organize and protest. [Tariq Ali may have been right when he said in 2009](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oYdvQZVvrU) (8:50), as the financial crisis’s impact was becoming clear, that, although the neoliberal capitalist project was effectively over, if there was no clear alternative voiced on the Left, then the benefits of the crisis would accrue to the Right and the extreme Right. Maybe Podemos and Syriza can articulate that alternative in Europe, and the backlash in France won’t reach Spain and Greece. Maybe the Greens can get into the debates in the UK. Those are big “maybes.” ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/69 "2015-01-11T02:14:04Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Can someone please explain the difference between the “liberal media” and the regular media? There was a time when many newspapers had Democrat or Republican in their name. Gave one a real sense of the bias of what they were about to read. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/70 "2015-01-11T04:09:23Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > A liberal recipe is one that, if you follow the directions, it works. Science-based, in other words. It colors outside the old-testament lines. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/71 "2015-01-11T05:41:55Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Or that like most Americans you have no real idea what an actual far left person is like, and mistake centrists for left wing extremists. Ever been on an American college campus? The liberal to leftist professors, all the politically correct crap, speech codes, etc… ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/72 "2015-01-11T05:51:58Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > If you’re saying they are a “right wing website” as a joke, then please use an emoticon to signify this. Otherwise, some will believe your characterization. I’m going to trust grown ups to grown up. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/73 "2015-01-11T05:56:07Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > There is not an equivalence between “science” and “religion”. Science is not a “belief”. It is a framework for approaching how the universe works through the methodical gathering of measurable and observable evidence. The nice thing about science is that it is subject to change in the face of new evidence. Religion does not require such scrutiny. Therefore religion has no place in scientific discussion and therefore does not require equal and balanced airtime with science in the same arena. > > If you want to discuss religion as a philosophical exercise or as a framework for morality, that is a different matter. Yes, you summarized the bias. Not sure why you decided to point it out again. But I’m beginning to see why you have the question in the OP that you do. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/74 "2015-01-11T06:20:35Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > The media are only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them. I have only read the last portions of this thread, but Der Trihs seems to be on the correct track, in that the Overton Window is small in a lot of places, but it’s particularly small in the US, and it’s been shifted substantially to the right, and that _ **people on the Right don’t even know this.** _ The Left moved to the Center, the Center moved to the Right, and the Right moved into a mental hospital, in a gradual process beginning around 1980, with damaging economic and social consequences, and perhaps apocalyptic, terminal environmental consequences. > > Witness the reaction among conservatives or reactionaries when one opposes the corporate media, or Democrats, from the left. > > I thought that perhaps things were changing around the turn of the century/millennium, with the global justice movement (called “antiglobalization” by the stupid corporate media) against neoliberalism, but it seems like the wars sapped so much of that momentum. I participated in Occupy, hoping that it would herald the rebirth of that sort of thing, and as many good things came out of that, it seemed like Americans had forgotten how to organize and protest. > > [Tariq Ali may have been right when he said in 2009](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oYdvQZVvrU) (8:50), as the financial crisis’s impact was becoming clear, that, although the neoliberal capitalist project was effectively over, if there was no clear alternative voiced on the Left, then the benefits of the crisis would accrue to the Right and the extreme Right. Maybe Podemos and Syriza can articulate that alternative in Europe, and the backlash in France won’t reach Spain and Greece. Maybe the Greens can get into the debates in the UK. Those are big “maybes.” As regards the above in bold, you’re pushing the same narrative as **Der Trihs** , and it falls flat. _Laissez faire_ capitalism has been abandoned for a century, the traditional family structure has been marginalized, American blood and treasure has been squandered in wars not declared by congress for decades, and debt to GDP was [100%](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp) last year. The US is not a conservative nation. Failing to go full socialist is not proof of there being no far left in the US. If anything, the left should be doing a victory dance, because they’re winning. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/75 "2015-01-11T06:49:12Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Ever been on an American college campus? The liberal to leftist professors, all the politically correct crap, speech codes, etc… That’s because reality has a certain well-known bias, and people who deal in research and empirical evidence will often come to certain well-known conclusions that the less-educated may miss. How is a history professor (for example) supposed to side with those who thought children should stay in coal mines, women should stay in the kitchen, and slaves should stay in the fields? All that “politically correct crap” is designed to ensure a welcoming environment for those who lack the privileges of someone like you (and indeed, like me). I interned at a place where the director once described his 1960s Dartmouth days as an environment full of racism and sexism, and as one where being LGBT was risking one’s life. Do you want to return to that? I would sooner deal with speech codes and overreactions. > [@Waymore](#): > > As regards the above in bold, you’re pushing the same narrative as **Der Trihs** , and it falls flat. _Laissez faire_ capitalism has been abandoned for a century, the traditional family structure has been marginalized, American blood and treasure has been squandered in wars not declared by congress for decades, and debt to GDP was [100%](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp) last year. The US is not a conservative nation. > > Failing to go full socialist is not proof of there being no far left in the US. If anything, the left should be doing a victory dance, because they’re winning. Laissez faire capitalism is imaginary anyway, but that’s a right-libertarian position, not a conservative one. The “traditional family structure” is another myth, as families have always changed from time to time and place to place; the nuclear family is a modern invention. Your antiwar stance is similarly not conservative, and things like war and empire swell the debt like few other factors. The US, to a perhaps unmatched degree in the developed world at present, is a place where the post-1980 (and especially post-1989) neoliberal project of most conservatives and liberals has gained the most traction. Giving welfare to the rich with free-market discipline for everyone else is basically what conservatives have always advocated; i.e. preserving power and privilege (with all kinds of self-serving excuses), while preventing the spread or dissemination of the same. To bring things full circle, the corporate media is largely owned and controlled by the same privileged sectors, and yet the notion of a “liberal media” that leans left only serves to move the Overton Window farther to the right. You may have proved my point for me, or just revealed that you are not a conservative, or perhaps both. ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/76 "2015-01-11T07:32:57Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > Laissez faire capitalism is imaginary anyway, but that’s a right-libertarian position, not a conservative one. The “traditional family structure” is another myth, as families have always changed from time to time and place to place; the nuclear family is a modern invention. Your antiwar stance is similarly not conservative, and things like war and empire swell the debt like few other factors. The US, to a perhaps unmatched degree in the developed world at present, is a place where the post-1980 (and especially post-1989) neoliberal project of most conservatives and liberals has gained the most traction. > > Giving welfare to the rich with free-market discipline for everyone else is basically what conservatives have always advocated; i.e. preserving power and privilege (with all kinds of self-serving excuses), while preventing the spread or dissemination of the same. > > To bring things full circle, the corporate media is largely owned and controlled by the same privileged sectors, and yet the notion of a “liberal media” that leans left only serves to move the Overton Window farther to the right. > > You may have proved my point for me, or just revealed that you are not a conservative, or perhaps both. You’re correct about one thing, I’m not a conservative as it is defined today. Laissez faire capitalism was the staus quo in the US up until the early 20th century, with a brief detour during the Civil War. The traditional family was the ideal and more often than not the reality for much of American history. Neither are imaginary. The neocon movement grew out of the [anti-Stalin left](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism) and only decamped for the Republican party in the 1960s. Leo Strauss is considered one of the key founders of the neocons. Compare his political philosophy to Thomas Jefferson’s and let me know how many similarities you find. I agree corporate welfare is bullshit, no arguments there. But there’s nothing inherently conservative about corporations or the media they own. Since the 1980s bulk collection of data has been instituted, the huge bureaucracy was set up in the Department of Homeland Security, the PC movement has taken deep root in the culture and there’s the little thing about debt being larger than GDP that I mentioned earlier. Nothing very right wing about that. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/77 "2015-01-11T13:19:53Z")
Since my recent post in Elections may get me a Warning anyway, I’ll dare to mention that I’m book-marking this thread. It will be good for an antidote or laugh next time someone pretends SDMB is an intelligent message board. ---
**Author:** ![Grotonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c2a13f/32.png) [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/78 "2015-01-11T13:26:47Z")
Obviously, most reporting is subjective: what to report, how to report, how much prominence to give a story, et c. But don’t overt comments and actions, although rare, generally skew liberal in the “mainstream media”? What comes to mind is Candy Crowley “correcting” Romney about Benghazi, and repeating herself at Obama’s request. It sure _seemed_ biased to me, and I’m pretty moderate. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/79 "2015-01-11T17:22:22Z")
> [@Waymore](#): > > You’re correct about one thing, I’m not a conservative as it is defined today. > > Laissez faire capitalism was the staus quo in the US up until the early 20th century, with a brief detour during the Civil War. The traditional family was the ideal and more often than not the reality for much of American history. Neither are imaginary. The 19th century robber barons (and plantation owners before that) habitually colluded with one another and with the state to preserve their power and privilege, thus creating a very unfree market at the expense of the masses, and that’s why laissez-faire capitalism is imaginary. What do you mean by “traditional” family? Again, families have always been in flux, and the “nuclear family” is a modern invention. Do you have a problem with a society that is more welcoming of people whose families don’t fit the conformist groove? Should people be shamed, punished, and ostracized for deviating? > [@](#): > > The neocon movement grew out of the [anti-Stalin left](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism) and only decamped for the Republican party in the 1960s. Leo Strauss is considered one of the key founders of the neocons. Compare his political philosophy to Thomas Jefferson’s and let me know how many similarities you find. I know about the origins of the neocons, but what of it? The US embarked on wars of aggression many times long before the neocons were even born. Jingoism is a very conservative trait, though not exclusive to conservatives. > [@](#): > > I agree corporate welfare is bullshit, no arguments there. But there’s nothing inherently conservative about corporations or the media they own. Corporations seek to maximize their profits at the expense of workers and the environment, and they seek to preserve and consolidate wealth and privilege. That’s conservative by definition. The media thus inherently seek to preserve this situation by narrowing the range of discourse. _This is even true of the more “liberal” sectors of the media, and the corporations that own them._ > [@](#): > > Since the 1980s bulk collection of data has been instituted, the huge bureaucracy was set up in the Department of Homeland Security, the PC movement has taken deep root in the culture and there’s the little thing about debt being larger than GDP that I mentioned earlier. Nothing very right wing about that. Those first two items are championed by authoritarians of the Right (and Left, when they’re in power, but they barely exist in the US), and in the US such measures are unopposed by those who fear “those people” coming and taking away our freedoms. War and empire and such are financially irresponsible, as are many other things conservatives love, like destroying the environment, the prison-industrial complex, the lack of a health-care system, and so on. As for the PC movement, is that a bad thing? You’re saying that you prefer an environment in which racism, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and so on and so forth are unquestioned and pervasive? Indeed, that is pretty conservative, and it’s a great reason why I’m not one. To the extent that such privelege has been challenged in the US media discourse and elsewhere, it has only done so in the face of organized movements from below. That’s the only thing that makes progress towards justice in all walks of life, which conservatives have always opposed, and with which the media are hardly dependable allies. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428/80 "2015-01-11T21:43:24Z")
> [@Lemmytheseal2](#): > > The 19th century robber barons (and plantation owners before that) habitually colluded with one another and with the state to preserve their power and privilege, thus creating a very unfree market at the expense of the masses, and that’s why laissez-faire capitalism is imaginary. You are riffing on the hazards of laissez-faire capitalism, collusion and monopolization, rather than refuting its existence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-liberal-media/709428.md?page=5)