The Rovian-Centered Theory of the Media Universe
In the Earth centered theory, there is the idea that journalists are independent watchdogs of government who dig to find the truth and hold their leaders accountable. Adherents to this theory believe journalists use their brains to come to their own conclusions based largely on facts, and all slip-ups aside, are ultimately there to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, or at least get good ratings.
A conversation with people who fall into this camp usually goes like this:
Why does the media so often frame their stories in the White House’s favor?
They suck up to power.
Why didn’t they suck up to power when the Democrats were in control under Clinton?
His scandals had sex in them. Sex sells.
Why didn’t the media do a story on the White House’s clearance of a male prostitute or make a bigger deal of Christian Republicans having no problem with porn stars attending one of their fundraisers?
Those stories weren’t important.
Then why did it take so long to report the Downing Street Memos or the fact that Karl Rove is the number one suspect in a case involving treason?
The media doesn’t rush to judgment. They want to have all the facts.
Then why did they run with the Swift Boat nonsense?
It’s easy to understand. All of Bush’s scandals are too complicated for the average person to get.
And so it goes.
Epicycle upon epicycle gets added to our Earth centered theory of the media universe to explain how, all evidence to the contrary, journalists are all well-meaning blokes who are trapped by the rigors of journalistic convention or at the mercy of bottom-line editors.
I think it’s time for our own media Copernicus to finally come up with a theory that better adheres to Occam’s Razor. Try this:
Why does the media so often frame their stories in the White House’s favor?
The media is conservative.
Why didn’t they suck up to power when the Democrats were in control with Clinton?
The media is conservative.
Why didn’t the media do a story on the White House’s clearance of a male prostitute, or make a bigger deal of Christian Republicans having no problem with porn stars attending one of their fundraisers?
The media is conservative.
Why did it take so long to report the Downing Street Memos or the fact that Karl Rove is the number one suspect in a case involving treason?
The media is conservative.
Why did they run with the Swift Boat Vet nonsense?
The media is conservative.
That’s much simpler. I can already hear the objections now. Deep down, the media really is there as the Fifth Estate and takes their responsibilities seriously, although the realities don’t always allow them to do their jobs as they should. I’ve met reporters and I know their heart’s in the right place. If you could see their souls, you’d know they mean well.
In the end, this is really just an existential argument. It doesn’t really matter if the media is made up of dopes or fiends any more than it matters whether Bush lied or actually believed Iraq had WMD, or lied because he thought Iraq had WMD. The problem is that the words coming out of Bush’s mouth rarely turn out to be true. We don’t judge people based on what they think because that is unknowable. We judge them by what they do.
Look at what the media does, and there’s only one conclusion: The media is conservative. If not in spirit, then certainly in practice.
I'm no expert on the business of journalism. With that in mind, journalism is a business, with customers. Could it be that the media is conservative because the customers are conservative? Or, more specifically, that the customers give the appearance of being conservative, since whatever it is that gives coherence to the conservative worldview makes for higher-value journalism product?
July 13, 2005 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps, to extend the analysis, the media are conservative because the customers are conservative--or want to be seen as such.
GM sells Hummers because people want Hummers--or want to be seen in them.
The media are "conservative" insofar as "conservative" is a marketing-department-created brand that is, currently, selling pretty well.
Problems, of course, crop up when conservative-the-brand and conservative-the-ideology diverge. It may pay to remember that the media are beholden to the former, but not the latter.
July 13, 2005 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
While I do like the simplicity in the explanation, I'm not sure it can be reduced to that.
I actually think the answer lies more in the need for profits. Because the Press are all businesses, they need revenue. And what's the easiest way to maximize revenue?
By pissing off the least amount of people possible.
I think the press has somehow defined "balanced" as one quote from the left and one quote from the right. This way, they are being "fair" and, more importantly, appealing to both sides. (Therefore pissing off less people than they would if they were stricly right or left.)
If the NYT or any other outlet did something daring, like point out the Swift Boat Shits were lying, that would be coming "from the left" -- even though it's the truth.
They would prefer to give both sides and let their viewers decide.
Everyone is following Fox's "we report you decide" tag line. Everyone but Fox, that is. Ironic...
July 13, 2005 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
First of all, it doesn't matter WHY the media conservative, so much as it does to admit it IS conservative. Also, there is a concerted effort by the news to be conservative Today the LA Times wrote:
So there's a deliberate effort to shut out liberal views and promote conservative ones. It's not just money, either. The media outlets see a bottom-line beyond mere ratings. Murdoch, for instance, is more than happy to have a newspaper lose money year after year just to have the ability to mold public debate in a conservative mindset.
But again, all these excuses for why the media is conservative diverts attention from the real problem: the media is conservative. It's time to recognize that fact.
July 13, 2005 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that the "why" doesn't matter, although I think that the attack on PBS is a different "why" -- one is profit-driven and the other is simply Republican ideology -- than how the Times or Post may or may not be liberal.
And I agree with your point on Murdoch; that's probably true with the Washington Times, too. But in TV news, profit drives their inability to report objectively.
But, again, the why is not as important as the result.
July 14, 2005 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't agree with your central premise, though you do raise many interesting points.
First, I'm not sure who exactly you're attacking with the "Earth-centered" media theory caricature. But the idea that political news is crafted as a result of the complex interaction between press norms, financial constraints, and the efforts of elites to influence news content is not some crackpot, epicycle theory -- it's 40 years of mass communication scholarship, based on everything from intensive field research and experience in journalism to large-n empirical analysis of news content. So the idea that "all evidence" is to the "contrary" is absurd. We have 40 years of evidence.
But I do agree that the press is conservative. You say that this descriptive fact is what's important -- but that statement is belied by the explanatory nature of your original post. Plus description without explanation makes us no better than Bernie Goldberg or Brent Bozell. So continuing with the explanation:
How might we reconcile the well-understood norms and constraints of political journalism with the observation that conservatives seem to have the upper hand nowadays? Since you place a premium on simplicity, here's a simple answer:
Conservatives have spent 30 years building an infrastructure for dominating the communication environment and public discourse. Why do Democratic scandals receive so much attention while Republicans scandals go unnoticed? Because Republicans have a seemless echo chamber and well-demarked points of entry into high-profile commentary outlets (Fox News and talk radio), while Dems have no such outlets.
Beyond that, Republicans have done a much better job taking advantage of those very journalistic norms and constraints you downplay. They know that news coverage is episodic rather than thematic, and thus you must constantly generate newsworthy pseudo-events. They know that you're more likely to gain coverage if you make the press' job as easy as possible. They know that "officials" are always privileged in news judgment criteria. Perhaps most important, they understand that the tenor and balance of coverage is "indexed" (Lance Bennett's famous term) to the opinion split among Washington elites. So polarized party positions will lead to balanced coverage. But a unified Republican Party and a fractured, disorganized, or overly apologetic Democratic Party will produce coverage slanted toward Republicans. They know this, and they stay on message. Democrats haven't figured this out yet, for some reason.
Add to that a healthy dose of "working the refs," and it's pretty easy to explain the contemporary conservative slant without throwing away established wisdom.
July 14, 2005 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with everything you've said here. All I'm calling for is a simple admission that the media is conservative. What gets me about all these non-ideological rationales for why the media behaves the way it does is that they don't explain the double standard.
Why cancel the top-rated show on MSNBC (Donahue) if it's about ratings? Why do they pass over scandals involving prostitutes and porn stars if it embarasses the GOP?Because the powers that be don't want ratings - they want conservative propoganda.
Why are execs looking to add yet another conservative pundit on the cable shows? Why do they always stack the decks conservative? Why do editors love publishing stories by conservative ideologues with a definite agenda, but serious journalists have to fight to print the objective truth that doesn't follow the White House line?
There is a deliberate effort to make the news conservative (with a few exceptions). Why? I don't know why. But we have to first see that the press is not bottom-line oriented but conservative before we can begin to probe for the answer.
July 14, 2005 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
. . .and I agree with all of that. You've raised some tough, interesting questions.
I would suggest that the "working the refs" factor, in combination with a general short-sighted observation by media executives that conservatism is the "dominant" or "fashionable" ideology in the country, might account for some of the bias. But I'm just guessing here.
As for Donohue being cancelled, let me relay an anecdote from when I worked in radio. Our medium-market, top-rated AM station carried Rush Limbaugh from 11-2, Alan Colmes from 2-3, and then a local Rush clone from 3-5. Limbaugh, of course, dominated the ratings, but Colmes by no means did poorly. But here's the problem: the conservative audience had no tolerance for a liberal wedged between Rush and the local twerp. The vitriolic letters and phone calls we received were enough to convince the management to cancel Colmes, despite his decent ratings. So maybe ideological purity is itself a marketing tool, even at the expense of a particular well-rated show.
July 14, 2005 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess this is the question: if it's all about the bottom line, why is the bottom line always to pimp conservative ideology? Shouldn't the bottom line cut our way every now and then?
On cable, the Daily Show and Countdown are the only shows I can think of that aren't that way. Why won't anyone dare try the James Carville show?
July 14, 2005 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the kind of argument that is made by media critics from the right and the left. The game is exactly the same, no matter which side you're on.
By carefully picking and choosing stories and issues that support your thesis that the media is liberal/conservative/whatever argument you want to make about media bias.
The Media Research Center does this job from the right, pointing out time and again when some story seems to be passing along Democratic spin points, or framing stories the way the Democrats would want them to, or that are unfairly critical of Bush, or overlooks some facts that they think are important, or otherwise shows a liberal bias. Many of their claims are bogus, but some of their points are dead on, at least on those specific stories they discuss.
Both groups of media critics, left and right, are equally full of it. Occam's razor notwithstanding, simple explanations are no good at explaining a complex phenomenon. I don't any simple explanation, including the one that newsgathering organizations unfailingly take their role seriously as watchdogs of government.
(I don't necessarily think that that's what their role ought to be.) Certainly, any theory that lumps "the media" together as an undifferentiated unit is missing something. Sometimes they are deferential to those in power; sometimes they like to uncover corruption in high office; sometimes they look for a good story. Sometimes they fact-check assertions made by various actors, sometimes they go with a he-said/she-said approach.
July 15, 2005 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, you look at today's media and see even handedness? Now who's seeing what they want to see?
July 15, 2005 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
And please, give me the equivelant atrocities you believe the media has committed on behalf of liberals on the order of the Swift Boat Vets. What major story embarassing to liberals was not covered, as with the DSM? Why is the media TODAY covering Rove's lies about Plame, all evidence to the contrary, and ignoring the fact that the Bush administration might very well be partly responsible for the London bombings because of ANOTHER clandestine operative, Khan, who was outed by Rove to justify raising the terror alert level in the campaign?
Who's seeing what they want to see?
July 15, 2005 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, nobody involved with the case has suggested that it has anything to do with treason. I would be quite surprised if anybody was indicted for treason.
July 15, 2005 1:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did the media not cover Jeff Guckert? That's not the way I remember it.
July 15, 2005 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've made this point before and it seems obvious but it does need to be raised again here. Part of how this whole system works is through a deliberate or unconscious blurring of the distinction between the news media and the cultural media.
The cultural side is quite prominently "liberal." This is where multi-culti values have been embraced, swallowed whole, fully absorbed and made into conventional pieties. It's the Oprah-centered universe here. And cultural conservatives look at all those gay-friendly sitcoms and all that sex 'nevathang you see all over TeeVee and how you're supposed to be tolerant of diversity 'nalla that stuff and scream librul librul librul, the ME-dia is librul!
Failing, of course, to make the distinction that the news media are anything but. In fact, the pronounced "liberal" character of the cultural side provides cover for the conservative character of the news side. By treating them as one thing--the "media"--you get to denounce the whole for the character of only one of its parts. By failing to notice or acknowledge the distinction, each side gets to reassure itself that the "media" is overwhelmingly biased toward the other side, thus reinforcing their own victimhood.
July 16, 2005 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
On the notion that Hollywood is liberal, see Kung Fu Monkey and look at the top grossing films of the past five years. Almost all of them have themes of "family", not some liberal agenda. Secondly, when I refer to media, I mean the news, the Fifth Estate which is meant to inform us, not the Simpsons. As you admit, that is extremely conservative. Certainly, those tasked with informing us about our government and holding them accountable shouldn't be carrying their water for them.
July 16, 2005 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink