When Does Punditry Become Propaganda?

By: Josh
Published On: 2/14/2006 2:00:00 AM

The politically informed use Sunday Morning talk shows the way an MP3 player uses a USB port:  to charge up and fill up to make some noise.  There was a time when political noisemakers could count on a well-balanced mix of opinions from which to draw their conclusions.  There was a time when Americans could count on a truly balanced representation of ideas and issues from the leading media outlets. 

That time is long gone...

Media Matters has an astounding review of the Sunday talk shows from 1997 to 2005.  The Media Matters survey reviewed 7,000 guest appearances on ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, and NBC's Meet the Press

The results ain't pretty. 

The era of balanced coverage has been replaced with a heavily one-sided right-wing era of television punditry.  No wonder American politics are trapped flying in viscious little circles.

Here are some high(low)lights of the Media Matters review:

Media Matters concludes:

In short, the Sunday talk shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC are dominated by conservative voices, from newsmakers to commentators.

When Does Punditry Become Propaganda?  I'd really like to know.


Comments



The amazing thing fo (Josh - 4/4/2006 11:32:36 PM)
The amazing thing for me is that, despite the overwhelming media bias in favor of conservatives and Republicans, there's just so much bad news swirling around the White House and Congress.

The list is endless, Iraq insurgency, lies that took us, Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby, Enron, Halliburton, Abramoff, Cheney ordered Libby to out Valerie plame!, Unconstitutional surveillance, robbing from widows and orphans to give massive windfalls to the rich, K-street, frist's "blind" trades, Katrina, Brown, Wasted Katrina money, "national failure", ...

I mean, I can't even wrap my mind around all the bad news coming out of this Republican dominated, backward time in America and that's WITH a near domination of the airwaves by right-wing pundits.

Just imagine what this would look like if it were getting active and involved media coverage!



This sounds like ano (Eric - 4/4/2006 11:32:36 PM)
This sounds like another one of those phony stories from the liberal media trying to make the GOP look bad.  ;-)

Great post Josh!  Maybe those bozos will finally shut up about how the media is soooo liberal and they're all against the poor little do-gooder conservatives. 

But, to your point, their argument was never about the facts...



Now you're talkin'! (F. T. Rea - 4/4/2006 11:32:36 PM)
Now you're talkin'! THIS is the story lefty political blogs should be exposing.

Yes, the mainstream media has been working hand-in-glove to produce a wall of blather, passing it off as news analysis and commentary. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure Democrats have been the big losers in this cynical strategy to produce a manageable product that makes a nice profit for all concerned.

The price? It has has systematically turned voters by the millions away from following politic news.

The elephants know it. They're using it. Maybe the donkeys are catching on? I’ll have more on this up topic on SLANTblog soon.