Age of Reason

Right-wing Media Bias is Widespread: David Brock

from The Republican Noise Machine, p. 12:

The problem is really not so much one of "bias", to use the Right's favored terminology, as it is where bias leads: In the biased right-wing media, among biased right-wing commentators, and in a mainstream media susceptible to right-wing scripting, it leads to verifiable journalistic malpractice, to the publication of misinformation, and to ethical malfeasance. At a deeper level, the existence and influence of the right-wing media as presently constituted is an affront to logic, rationality, and the maintenance of a shared knowledge base from which political consensus and correct public policy choices can be forged.
...
One complaint that I do lodge against the mainstream media and the politically unaligned pundits in their utter failure to expose the right-wing media for the destructive force that it plainly is and to vigilantly police its own ranks against the right-wing raid. Given the amount of ink spilled, and orgies of self-flagellation, surrounding the cases of serial journalistic fabricators Stephen Glass of The New Republic and Jayson Blair of the New York Times, I find this laxity curious, to say the least.
...
The appearance, indulgence, and even celebration of known right-wing dissemblers, extremists, kooks, racists, sexists, homophobes, and anti-Semites in outlets of the mainstream media, including book publishing, is, in my opinion, a disgrace. Some toxic mix of economic and political pressures has caused the guardians of our media to acquiesce in the debasement of our political culture, not to mention of their own integrity and professional standing.

No time to read Brock's book? Here's a good, hour-long interview of Brock by Robert McChesney (MP3).

posted by conchis @ 8:02 PM