Liberal bias in news coverage has bothered conservatives ever since there were only three TV networks, which broadcast mostly in black and white. But in Nancy LeTourneau’s odd telling, conservative media bias came first, about twenty years ago, and liberals then had to catch up.
“In order for Fox News to be successful, they had to convince potential viewers that the mainstream press was liberal,” wrote the Washington Monthly blogger in a Friday post. “That led to a whole cottage industry of right wing media that thrives today because conservatives bought the premise. Eventually liberals needed to create their own counterweight to combat the lies and spin emanating from these sources and now, never the twain shall meet. A lot of Americans live in a world created by one side or the other. Our news is polarized.”
LeTourneau’s ahistorical argument about media bias was part of her overall indictment of conservatives for “politiciz[ing] everything” from health-care reform to “science and math” (bolding added):
I’ve been thinking about all of that as we watch what is happening in the FBI these days…
I imagine that when/if the Obama administration moves to clean up that mess, there will be howls of “partisanship” heard across the land.
The goal of all of this is to ensure that we never find any common ground and that everything becomes a “he said/she said” – which much our media buys in to with their both-sider-ism…
[When the average voter’s] response is cynicism, that leads to “a deep disdain for all politics and all politicians.” As Mike Lofgren explained several years ago, that is exactly what Republicans are hoping for…
To the extent that liberals believe in government as a force for good, it is imperative to keep in mind that the end goal here is to do what is necessary to uphold the democratic processes that were put in place to govern this diverse country.
