We hear this running argument all the time. The media has a left-wing bias. Reporters and commentators are demonstrably more committed to the “liberal” or “left” perspective. They emphasize stories that hurt Republicans and discredit “right” or “conservative” points of view. No, no—the media has a right-wing bias. The newspapers, and the radio and television stations are owned by huge corporations, and the wealthy executives make their points of view felt either directly or indirectly. Talk-radio is overwhelmingly dominated by conservatives. Both sides offer their examples and arguments.
But the real bias may be more troubling. Media corporations—owners of television, radio and print media—are profit-driven entities. Conflict and confrontation sell. Drama sells. The quiet calm of happy agreement and consensus offers little drama (unless it comes at the end of a confrontation, which is a rare occurrence for reasons that will be explained). Consensus may be the best for our society, but it lacks drama; it risks boring the media consumer. So the media will be forever biased toward confrontation and conflict.
The media coverage on the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito for the Associate Justice position on the United States Supreme Court demonstrated the situation. By any objective measure, stripping away ideology and looking solely at credentials and experience, Samuel Alito was well-qualified to be a justice on the Supreme Court. But the media discussed the confirmation process as a contest, a sporting event, a story of one side against the other. Because the process is cast that way, the participants get caught up in winning and losing. Lines are drawn, the teams are set, and they both want to win.
Team members get so caught up in the contest that they end up tangled in absurdities. The media should catch these absurdities. Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy, anxious to make his case that Judge Alito has been a right-wing bigot, ranted and raved about a goofy parody in a publication by a Princeton alumni group Judge Alito had listed on a job application. This article moaned that “people don’t know their place,” and went on to make other over-the-top statements. Any clear-thinking person could see the writer was joking. Even the name of the article-writer was a joke, a pseudonym for the prankster. But there was Senator Kennedy, reading the absurd statements as if they were serious, and should be seriously considered concerning Judge Alito. It was like attributing the statements of the fictional character Archie Bunker to a person who listed “All in the Family” as a credit on his entertainment resume. Most of the media, intent on covering the confrontation between teams, failed to point out Kennedy’s mistake.
The confrontational tone of the process led to verbal assaults on Judge Alito so jagged that his wife was driven from the proceedings in tears. She couldn’t understand why her husband, an upstanding citizen committed to public service, a man whose accomplishments in life and position in the world had garnered him utmost respect, could possibly be subjected to such a degrading assault on his character. The media dismisses the venomous confrontational atmosphere as “politics.” I’m sure media people would tell me that they didn’t create the atmosphere; they report on something that already exists. This may be true. But they have a vested interest in perpetuating the atmosphere, and they have helped to ratchet it up.
The twenty-four hour news channels with the “fair and balanced commentary” (not just Fox News) exacerbate the situation. I am reminded of a foreign policy concept, the law of unintended consequences. The “fair and balanced” idea of retaining commentators to address both sides of an issue was certainly originated to offer unbiased coverage. But this idea produced the unintended consequence of the bias toward confrontation.
The “fair and balanced” commentators clearly know why they have been called on. They are given national media time to hold up their side of the argument. Most of these people have media careers, or other careers that can be greatly helped by this media exposure. So they have a vested interest in giving a good performance for their team. If they reach out for consensus, or seem to lose the argument to their “fair and balanced” counterpart, they may hurt their careers, or even worse, not get called again to be on television. So they have a bias against consensus and agreement. They are hired professional debaters. They will fight for their teams with the same intensity that those teams fight to win for their political side.
One person in particular makes an interesting study of this situation. Tammy Bruce is a Los Angeles radio talk show host who has been used as a “fair and balanced” commentator. I have heard her state that she remains a Democrat. But she is often called in to argue the “right-wing” or “conservative” side of an issue because she has recently expressed dissatisfaction with the direction of the Democratic Party. She is an admirable, free-thinking person who used to be with NOW, who was attacked by them for challenging their orthodoxy, who examines each issue outside the context of the team. She would be the perfect person for a consensus approach to commentary. I find myself smiling to see her deftly retaining her independence while holding up the conservative end of the argument. After all, she is a pro-choice Democrat called in to argue for the “right wing,” not an easy assignment! I also wish I could hear her answer questions posed from a consensus perspective. I suspect those answers would be more illuminating because they would utilize her talents better.
The Alito confirmation was also cast as part of the ongoing confrontation over abortion rights. We have had thirty years of Roe v Wade. The media has featured that as the key contest in the abortion game—the keep Roe v Wade team against the overturn Roe v Wade team. Because of this bias toward confrontation, the media has allowed Roe v Wade to be over-emphasized. Overturning Roe v Wade would not suddenly make abortion illegal all over the country! The issue would simply go back to the states. I am pro-choice (though I believe that after six months of pregnancy, the choice has been made). I have no fear of Roe v Wade being overturned. This is one of the biggest red herrings in recent politics. Roe v Wade is simply not as important as the media has represented. The media has a bias toward perpetuating the confrontation. And now, the media has failed to cover another part of the story. Legislatures in some of the more conservative states are now considering abortion laws that violate Roe v Wade, because they believe the Supreme Court may overturn the decision. The real story is state by state. Polls have shown the country is pro-choice. Will those state legislatures have the political will to pass restrictive anti-abortion laws? If they do, will Congress make federal laws? This is a more complicated, more nuanced story than the contest between the keep Roe v Wade and the overturn Row v Wade team. But that multi-layered story lacks the drama of a possible winning and losing team, so it receives little attention.
Another issue that has been handled as a contest by the media is the issue of global warming. The media has insisted on a “fair and balanced” approach. This has resulted in equal time given to each side of this argument, even though a much larger group of scientists express serious concern about global warming than those who dismiss it. Many of the scientists on the global-warming-is-not-a-serious-problem team even concede that there is a slight manmade global warming, though they disagree that it will ever be a serious problem for humanity. This is another complex debate that has been cast in a confrontational context. When a new storm hits, the teams come out to make their points. When a cold snap hits, the teams come out again. Heat wave? Bring out the teams again. The issue deserves more serious treatment. Objective reporting that doesn’t side with one team or the other, and even strives to sift out any consistencies between the positions of the different scientists would make more sense. But the media puts the teams on the field, lets them game it up a little, and then moves on to the next story until the next storm, or cold snap, or heat wave.
This bias toward confrontation is probably not a resolvable problem. But this media bias hurts us because political decisions that affect our daily lives should not be decided by which political team designs the best game plan. Awareness is our best inoculation against this media bias. Even though the media is biased to feature confrontation, to offer “good television,” or “good radio,” or “a good story,” we need to look for consensus and agreement. It is usually through a synthesis of ideas that true progress is made.
Richard Warren Field is the author of the upcoming novel, The Swords of Faith. For more information, go to RichardWarrenField.com.
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